


pour your gasoline on me (let's torch the whole world down)

by halogensleep



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Assassins, Becky Needs Attention, Bigger Sociopath Becky, Charlotte Doesn't Know What To Do With Her, Enemies to Lovers, Every Single One Of Charlotte's Facial Expressions Is Holt From Brooklyn 99, F/F, Interrogation, Lesbian Post-Modern Gothic, Sociopath Charlotte, Sociopaths Falling In Love, Sociopaths Trying To Kill Each Other, Their Dates Involve Trying To Kill One Another, There's A Cat Called Fuzz Aldrin, Thirsty Becky, Top Becky, Top Charlotte, Torture, Useless Lesbians, lesbian assassins, murder fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2019-11-12 02:31:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 63,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18002120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halogensleep/pseuds/halogensleep
Summary: Prompt: Assassin!Charlynch AUCharlotte took immense pride in her work, killing for a living wasn't just a calling but rather an art form. It was the reason why clients handed her the blank check and told her to write whatever number came to mind. She was the best of the best. The invisible woman. The Queen of Shadows. The person who made problems dissapear.After she wakes up ziptied to a chair at the mercy of a knife wielding Irishwoman who doesn't take no for an answer, her black and white life becomes colourful in every sense of the word as they begin a game of cat and mouse that won't end well for either of the hitwomen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this story and want me to continue it then please review!
> 
>  
> 
>   
> [SONG FOR THE STORY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoLlgAnXkXw)  
> 

Charlotte awoke to a sore head and her good white shirt ruined. For a moment. For the briefest of instants. For the second before her wrists realised they were zip tied behind the chair, numb from the pressure, she was both nervous and impressed, simultaneously. 

There was a reason clients handed her the cheque book and told her to write whatever number came to mind… she was supposed to be untouchable, invisible, the queen of shadows, the go to woman when problems needed to disappear. Apparently, somebody hadn’t just been looking in her direction, they had been watching her, learning her, picking apart her cloak of invisibility thread by thread.

Whoever he was, Charlotte became instantly certain that she would kill him the long way around. A bullet or knife would be too fast. A steam iron set to eco-mode on the other hand? Well, it would certainly be an interesting way to show him the scenic route of his own mortality once she got these zip ties off.

“Ah, the bruiser is awake!” A chirpily Irish—and definitely female—voice greeted from the warehouse door.

Charlotte said nothing despite her surprise, her unmoving stare fixed on the damp brick wall on the other side of the warehouse. She exhaled as the sound of footsteps crept around her immobilised position and suddenly became a tangible person to look at with big brown eyes and long gingery copper hair. If it wasn’t for current situation, the zipties, the abduction, the knife glinting in the Irishwoman’s hand, Charlotte would have been looser with compliments. The woman was beautiful, a present threat, but beautiful nonetheless.

There was no mask or disguise which was either fantastic news or terrible news. Charlotte was leaning more towards the latter. An old hitman with eager lips who had found himself the star witness of a federal prosecution had gone to the trouble of warning her once that this wasn’t a career that came with much longevity. In fact, it was the last thing he ever said before the slash wounds on his arms finally bled out—it was important the job looked like a suicide, Charlotte  _ loved _ the jobs that required a feminine eye for detail the most—but now, immobilised, staring into the eyes of the woman who was no doubt getting ready to deliver a swift coup de grâce with the small knife in her hand, Charlotte couldn’t help but wish she had listened a bit harder to that old snitch.

“Well… not much of a talker, are you?” The Irishwoman pouted and twiddled the tip of her knife. “I won’t pretend I’m not offended.”

Charlotte smiled politely and said nothing.

“You realise I’m holding a knife?” The Irishwoman glanced down at her weapon, eyebrow craned by the oddness of the silence.

“You couldn’t spread butter with that thing.”

“Catty of you,” The Irishwoman didn’t skip a beat.

Charlotte smirked and busied herself with all the creative ways this pretty red haired woman was going to die at her hands as soon as she got loose. And by her own estimations, the Irishwoman with her long slender jaw and bright white teeth was  _ more _ than just pretty… apparently she was quite the comedian too. 

It left her at odds with her experience and training. A successful career up until this moment had been based on the ability of reading people, facial expressions, speech patterns, involuntary movements, that sort of thing. Charlotte found herself slightly at a loss trying to pick apart the woman staring at her. There was no nervousness, no anger, no cynicism or bitterness, just overwhelming and abundant chirpiness as if they were two friends meeting after a long time apart.

She felt her disadvantage grow weightier.

“Ah,” The Irishwoman smiled suddenly, nodding her head a bit. “Thinking of ways to kill me?”

“It’s one way to pass the time,” Charlotte said coolly.

“I just want to chat, silly billy!” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes and straddled Charlotte’s restrained hips, plonking herself down on the jerking lap. “It would seem you know a friend of mine, Hadiq Sharma ring any bells?” Her lips curled into a smirk.

Her fingers danced over the white lapels of Charlotte’s shirt during the interim of silence that followed. Charlotte scowled at the cockiness and looked away. 

The steam iron was going to be set to linen-mode for this troublemaker as soon as she figured a way out of this place.

“Can’t say I know him,” Charlotte lied.

“We can get to that in a moment.” The Irishwoman waved her hand. “I thought we could get a little better acquainted first…”

“Is that so?” Charlotte’s breaths became tight and measured as the troublemaker sitting over her lap pushed herself forward slightly.

“It is so nice to meet you, Charlotte. Well…  _ officially _ meet you, I mean.” The Irishwoman jollily waved her knife at the miswording. “You’re considerably more dressed than the last time we were alone together. Speaking of which, you really shouldn’t use shampoos that contain parabens… absolutely terrible for the environment.” She gravely shook her head. “Also, you should make a habit of checking behind the shower curtain for intruders but I suppose that’s by the by now.” The knife was waved again like a plaything to punctuate her point. “After all, if horror films have taught us one thing it’s that you never know what sort of monster could be lurking behind the shower curtain, do you?” The Irishwoman breathed it out as a confession.

“You were in my bathroom?” Charlotte lifted an impressed brow.

“Oh, and the one in Connecticut too. Nice family pad by the way, was difficult tracking down the money orders and wire transfers with all of the fake names you used but I really do love a challenge.” The Irishwoman prodded, and Charlotte felt her blood run cool. “I didn’t put you down as the bleeding heart type but it was very sweet seeing how cosy you keep your sister and baby niece. They love you a lot, you know.”

“If you hurt them…” Charlotte didn’t need to finish the threat.

“Don’t be silly, Charlotte. Honestly, you make me sound like a sociopath! When your old battle buddy came knocking on the door looking for you, Molly insisted that I came in for a coffee and a sit down. Oh how we laughed as the baby photos came out of the cupboard!” The Irishwoman beamed with delight. “I didn’t have to so much as bend one of her fingers back… she told me everything I needed to know and then some.” The knife was traced gently along her straining neck.

The rage became visceral and embarrassing, humiliating even. Six years of doing this and nobody had so much as known the area code of her cell phone number. Charlotte realised this was an intricate torture in and of itself. The Irishwoman wasn’t gloating for the sake of gloating, she was inflicting a sense of claustrophobia, forcing a state of overwhelming stress, preparing her for an interrogation. Charlotte swallowed as the knife was traced along her jawline.

That was it, Charlotte realised. This was an interrogation, methodical and deliberate.

“I get it now…” Charlotte started to pick at the thread, the cogs turning as she closed her eyes. “You were part of the IRA,” she lengthily exhaled.

“Excuse me?” The Irishwoman laughed. “Suddenly a detective, are we? Sort of xenophobic that you assume I’m a terrorist just because of the accent but I suppose you’re not wrong...”

“That’s what you tell clients when they ask questions,” Charlotte opened her eyes and rolled them slightly. “That you were in the Republican Army. I’m sure you ham it up a little more than that, maybe talk about big jobs and political hits you and your cousins never actually did. It’s part of your cover story so nobody finds out you were a police officer, once upon a time at least.” Charlotte lifted her brows. “I’m getting warm, right?”

The Irishwoman’s smirk barely faltered, but barely was enough for Charlotte to know she was bang on the money.

“You are as formidable as they warned me you would be,” The Irishwoman pushed forward with a whisper and pressed her lips to Charlotte’s ear. “Do you know what a police officer never does, Charlotte?” She asked it so quietly, so hushed, almost flirtatiously.

“Retire with a pension?” Charlotte smirked.

“Funny,” The Irishwoman nodded and smiled too. 

There was a flash, a small glint of steel in the air and then white-hot pain in Charlotte’s thigh where the knife was buried. She cried out. The pain reverberated through her extremities, only growing more substantial the more she twisted and twitched the limb. The Irishwoman just hushed and petted her cheek, making silly crooning noises that only made Charlotte want to horribly kill her all the more.

The Irishwoman continued her point, “A police officer knows to never leave witnesses, Charlotte.” It was said with a serious nod. “Now I’m willing to bet you know how this is going to end for you, so how about you give me what I want and I make this mercifully quick?” The Irishwoman talked over the sound of her pained grunts.

“If you really did your research...” Charlotte exhaled and caught her breath, wincing and lifting her chin. “You would know I’m really into this sort of shit.”

“Your sister mentioned you were captured behind enemy lines, there’s no need to harp on about it any more than she did.” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes in boredom, shuffling a bit on Charlotte’s sore and bloody lap.

“Nothing like being tied to a chair with time to kill.” Charlotte did the smug thing with her eyebrows and ignored the pain. “I really enjoy being a pain in the ass in these type of situations, I’d clear your schedule if I were you.”

“I am so glad you said that because I feel  _ exactly _ the same way.” The Irishwoman leaned back on Charlotte’s lap, twisting the knife in her leg slightly to punctuate her point. “But this is just the warm up… my methods are far more brutal and psychological, love. Please don’t make me show you the hard way.” Her tone became severe and stern.

“If you’re about to threaten to kill my baby sister, go ahead.” Charlotte was prepared to roll the dice. “Honestly? She’s kind of a nag.” She nodded in exasperation.

“Funny.” The Irishwoman jabbed the knife again.

Charlotte hissed, glaring and irritated. “You know, I’m beginning to really not like it when you do that,” she said.

“Do you have a preference as to where I scatter your niece after I’ve chopped her up?” The Irishwoman pouted slightly and narrowed her eyes, as if she were deep in thought. “Anywhere of sentimental value? There’s something about tiny coffins that makes me feel a bit queasy. Unless you play ball with me, Charley-poo, that’s going to be the state of things.”

Charlotte snapped her head up.

“Ah, there we go, got your attention now.” The Irishwoman patted her cheek. “So here’s what I’m thinking, you can tell me what I want to know and I’ll make this as quick or slow as you like… or you can piss me about and I’ll visit that lovely house in Connecticut and put some colour on the walls. Lady’s choice?” She tilted her head, eyes glimmering with playfulness.

Charlotte thought of her niece’s smile and her little chubby fingers, the way she never shares with other children, the glimmer of rage in her babyish stare when things don’t go her way, all of the things that imbued her with a sense of pride, and she felt herself give up instantaneously. There were few things she cared selflessly about in this world—maybe half a thing on a particularly good day—but her niece and her cat were always up there on the list. 

It was becoming more certain by the second that her card was finally up and it was equally as exciting as it was terrifying. Many sleepless night had been spent thinking about her perfect death; other people dreamed of passing away in their sleep, old and feeble, but she wanted to leave this world white-knuckled and spitting blood in the eyes of adversaries, taking world-altering secrets to her grave with nothing more than a final ‘fuck you.’

But, the Irishwoman knew about her stupid little perfect baby niece.

All things considered, today was racking up to be a bad day at the office.

“What is it exactly you want to know about Sharma?” Charlotte sighed and craned her neck, willing to play ball.

“You accepted a job to kill my client, a very bad move all things considered.” The Irishwoman wagged her finger disapprovingly. “Who paid for the job?”

“I have no idea.”

“I don’t like that answer.” The knife was yanked free and buried again instantaneously in the same spot. Charlotte gagged with the pain and threw her head back. “Shh, you big baby!” the psychopath crooned. “We can stop as soon as you give me something a bit more substantial, love. Shall we try again?” She offered, softly.

“How am I supposed to know who wanted Sharma dead!?”

“Please don’t make me press this knife in any deeper. I hate it when people spurt blood, it would be very selfish of you.”

“There’s who pays for the job and who orders it along with all the middle management in between! Even if I wanted to I wouldn’t be able to make an educated guess.” Charlotte grew frustrated with the line of questioning. “There’s a lot of people who want Sharma dead, he controls half the counterfeit trade and he’s a terrible driver!” Charlotte shrugged indignantly.

The Irishwoman tutted in disapproval, the knife was buried into the femur bone instantaneously. Charlotte threw her head back and clenched her eyes. Whoever this woman was, she deeply loved her work, and Charlotte was beginning to admire just how much she admired it, a professional approval almost.

“I’m beginning to think you’re just dragging this out because you like me.” The Irishwoman leaned in so close the warmth of her breath was felt on Charlotte’s lips. “It’s one of the more interesting come-ons I’ve had, I’ll give you that.” Her brown eyes twinkled mischievously.

“How many times did you rehearse that line in your head?” Charlotte rolled her eyes.

“Brave, you’re a tough girl.” The knife was pulled out and jammed in again. “It’s a little show-offy.”

“Jesus Christ!” Her tiny world became nothing but pain and the threat of more pain, and it left her more than slightly exhilarated. “What can I say?” Charlotte hissed sarcastically and gathered herself. “Maybe I just want to take you to a bar when all of this is over with?”

“You know the way to my heart. And unfortunately for you, I know the way to yours too.” The small glinting knife was pulled out of her leg and pressed into her breastbone. “I’m getting bored, Charlotte, and I’m starting to wonder what you look like without skin. Don’t make me find out…”

“Mr. Rabbit.”

“Is that your safeword?” A slender eyebrow piqued.

“It’s the name of the man who delivers jobs for the Collective, that’s what he called himself. Mr Rabbit. Codeword for the Hadiq Sharma job is, ‘the carriage clock has been fixed.’ I have a phone number for him and that codeword for when the job is completed but I don’t know how far up this goes and I certainly don’t ask questions. You think I give a shit who orders the jobs or balances the cheque books? I pick up the name, I name my price, I do the job, I take my money, that’s it!” Charlotte reared forward with adrenalin. “I’m telling you the truth.”

The Irishwoman pouted and huffed a long, disappointed sigh. “So you are,” she frowned and put the knife away. “You want to give me the number? It’ll go some way towards me not murdering your family...”

“It’s in the burner phone.” Charlotte nodded to the tray beside them where her things had been laid out. “If you think he’s just going to tell you who his master is just because you asked nicely… well.” Charlotte shook her head gravely and wanted to laugh at the thought, almost.

“You’ve been very helpful, this is the most fun I’ve had on a first date in years.” The Irishwoman smiled and patted Charlotte’s cheek. “Now, do you mind waiting here for a second while I make a phone call?”

“Please, take your time.”

“Gracious of you.” The Irishwoman shuffled and stood up from Charlotte’s lap.

Charlotte felt her body sink with relief as the Irishwoman grabbed the phone and scrolled through the contact list. The chance of her miraculously escaping were slim to none, but she would gladly take a moment’s respite from her current predicament. The phone dialed out and was promptly lifted to the Irishwoman’s ear, she blew out her cheeks and nodded her head side to side, impatient and playful.

“Hello is that Mr. Rabbit?” The Irishwoman chirped, and the noise of a deep voice speaking on the line was just about audible. “Well, that’s because I’m not the Queen. My name is Becky Lynch. Yes, I know it’s not what you were expecting but the Queen can’t come to the phone right now. She’s a little tied up.” The grin was gleaming and pleased. “Now as I understand it, Mr. Rabbit, you had some business with the Queen concerning a man named Hadiq Sharma...” There was a pause. “Yes, that’s the one! Nice fella! Smashing beard! Terrible driver!”

Charlotte closed her eyes and shook her head at the silliness of it.

“Now, Mr. Rabbit, sir, I understand you represent a co-operative of buyers who require the kind of services that I just so happen to offer. I have to tell you, it’s been impossible to get a contact number for you to submit my resume.” The Irishwoman played with her wet knife. “Anyway, I killed Hadiq Sharma last night. I made it look like a mundane accident, needless to say the carriage clock has been well and truly fixed. I was hoping I could collect payment for the job and that you will consider my services next time you go to market?”

Charlotte snapped her eyes open and felt them bulge out of her skull.

The Irishwoman just smiled coyly at her, fingers waving, phone tucked between her chin and shoulder.

Charlotte realised she had just been played like a fiddle.

“Wonderful to hear, I look forward to speaking to you soon.” The Irishwoman hung up the phone and strolled back over to Charlotte. “He was lovely, what a nice man!” She gushed chirpily.

“So let me get this straight...” Charlotte blinked and grinded her jaw. “You just screwed me out of a paycheck and went to all of this trouble…” She looked around at the warehouse, looked at her stabbed thigh, then looked back to her smiling captor. “All to introduce yourself to the Collective?” The fury became palpable.

“I like to think of it as female entrepreneurs helping one another up the corporate ladder.” The Irishwoman plonked herself back down on Charlotte’s lap, her weight awakening the pain in her pin-cushioned thigh. “Think of this as a chamber of commerce meeting.”

“You could have just went with that in the beginning!”

“You would have thought of a way to fuck everything up if you thought I was about to take over your patch. It was easier when you thought this was just a simple job gone wrong, especially with sweet little Emily on the line… as if I would ever kill a child.” The Irishwoman rolled her eyes, and the knife came to a menacing rest on Charlotte’s shoulder. “You know I have to kill you though, right?”

“I had a feeling you were going to say that.”

“It’s a shame, really. I felt like we had a connection, you know?” The Irishwoman whispered with mocking, saddened eyes. “Any last requests?”

“What time is it?” Charlotte narrowed one of her eyes, suddenly remembering.

The Irishwoman stared at her in disbelief, but she humoured Charlotte nonetheless and peered at the screen of the burner phone. “One fifty-eight, to be precise,” she answered. “Why? Are you running late for something?”

“Do you mind if we hold off for two minutes? I have a thing about odd numbers…” Charlotte sighed and was entirely serious. “A round two o'clock feels like a good time, right?”

“If movies have taught me anything it’s that you’re stalling for time before your old platoon buddies burst through the windows with guns—”

“Most of them are dead or married to codependent wives who never let them go anywhere fun, but you already know that.” Charlotte interrupted with a serious look. “Honestly, I just really don’t like odd numbers.”

“Well alright.” The Irishwoman blinked, slightly offset.

“So why did you give up being a police officer?” Charlotte blurted, determined to pass the seconds towards her death with small talk, curiosity getting the better of her a bit as the human conundrum remained precisely that. “You start killing for a living for any particular reason?”

“No. Just money, mainly,” The Irishwoman lied. “What makes a soldier with a gleaming service record and a bronze star to boot turn to this sort of thing?” Her nose wrinkled.

“Money,” Charlotte lied too.

The truth was far simpler; she just really enjoyed killing people. The squelch. The gasp. The last bit of life slipping from someone’s eyes. The way windpipes felt when they were crushed beneath her fingers. The creativity. The sacredness of it. They were such simple pleasures, really. The irony was that she didn’t stumble on her favourite pass-time until after leaving the Army. Her MOS was 35M, human intelligence collection. It was a vocation that made her an expert in picking people apart and getting to the source of secrets. It was interesting, but it wasn’t using an orbital sander at four in the morning to grind off tattoos and other identification markers before dumping a body downstream interesting.

“Do you miss it, being a soldier I mean?” The Irishwoman prodded.

“Do you miss being a police officer?”

“Not really.”

“Me neither.” Charlotte sighed. “What made you do it in the first place?”

The Irishwoman sighed too. “I quite liked the thought of having a gun. I suppose I could have joined the IRA, but I’m not much political. Also, I liked the sirens. Sirens are always fun.”

“Hm,” Charlotte hmph’d at the unravelled mystery. “Well, I think our two minutes are up.”

“Are you rushing me to kill you?” The Irishwoman became befuddled. “Aren’t you going to beg or try… something?”

“Death doesn’t scare me.”

“I would ask what does scare you but some mysteries are worth keeping.” She patted Charlotte’s shoulder and got up from her lap. “For what it’s worth I was a big fan of you work. Johnny the War Dog? Two Teeth Billy? You made artwork out of those jobs. I mean, strychnine in the air vents? Poetic. If there was a Hall of Fame, you would be up there.”

Charlotte nodded and couldn’t help but agree, she was a damn fine soldier and an even better hitwoman. All things said and done, she had certainly lived life with a vengeful sort of passion for her work. It wasn’t a husband and children in the suburbs, but she stood by her life choices which was more than what most people could say.

“Let’s get this over with.” Charlotte lifted her chin and offered her throat. “Nothing too gory or creative.” A serious brow was raised. “Take my wallet, make it look like a mugging gone wrong. It’ll take a while but my sister will eventually put out a missing person’s report and someone will identify my body, you’ll be long gone by then but at least they’ll have something to bury.”

“Are you serious orchestrating your own murder?” The Irishwoman smiled slightly, impressed, her eyes gleaming with what appeared to be an instantaneous sort of fondness.

“You’ll understand, one day.”

“Goodness,” The Irishwoman shook her head and looked away for a moment, she stepped forward and looked at Charlotte again, far more sobered this time. “You really are growing on me.” The knife jabbed shallowly into the side of Charlotte’s throat, the blood spurting a bit.

Funny really, she had watched the process of death up close, an admirer of sorts. But now it was happening to her and it was nothing as she expected. Charlotte imagined the process of dying would feel like she was being forced out of her body, but this wasn’t that. Charlotte closed her eyes and tried to remain calm and dignified, the blood dribbling and pumping and leaving her quickly. She felt heavier. She felt as if she was slipping inwards. The process was… interesting.

“Saint Mary’s is three blocks north,” The Irishwoman whispered close to her ear. “Your Carotid is nicked, I’d give you ten minutes at best. Twelve if you apply hard enough pressure.” The surprise became dumbfounding as her wrists were snipped free from the restraints. “Consider this a one time gift. And if you die? Well... it was a mugging gone wrong.”

Charlotte collapsed forward and pinched the wound with numbed fingers, hissing as she dug inside the cut and forced the source of it closed as best she could. The Irishwoman was long gone by the time she got up and started dragging herself to the door.

She slung herself down the stairs, slung herself across the cement floor, threw herself out onto the street, each movement a gigantic push as her fingers squeezed and pinched the source of the bleed. Charlotte had never felt so alive before, not even a little bit, and it was growing more and more exhilarating by the second.

She got less than twelve steps down the street before passers-by were stopping and hollering and fetching help. Apparently, today, luck was on Charlotte’s side after all; one of the do-gooders was an off-duty EMT. Charlotte sighed in relief as the wounds on her leg and throat were tended to, a car whizzing up and parking along the side of the pavement ready to rush her to the hospital.

Twelve minutes wasn’t even a competitive amount of time at all. Charlotte thought the Irishwoman had definitely tipped the odds in her favour, either that or she was offended by the implication of the alternative.

Charlotte slightly smiled to herself as strangers bundled her into the car. A single name, Becky Lynch, was all she had. But she knew come hell or high-water she would find the Irishwoman again. Charlotte wasn’t sure what this now was. Maybe war. Maybe cat and mouse. Maybe nothing or everything. It was, however, unfinished business, and Charlotte had just the steam iron to make it neat and tidy once her cardiovascular system had been put back together.

 

…

 

Seven hours of surgery, two weeks in the hospital, and three new pink scars later, Charlotte had finally made it back home to her apartment. The police report read that she had been the victim of a mugging gone wrong and Charlotte kept the details as vague as possible. This was her mouse to chase, her woman to burn the world down in search of. Now that her sister and most importantly, her niece, were out of Connecticut and somewhere safe, Charlotte felt the urge to stretch out and immediately set to work.

The apartment was exactly how she left it as she opened the door and limped inside, which struck immediate alarm bells. There was no sour, pungent smell from the chicken breasts that had been left to thaw in the sink a fortnight prior. There was no two week accumulation of leaflets that had been shoved underneath the door. The litter tray by the bathroom door had been used which meant Fuzz Aldrin had been coming and going, somehow. The latter was as relieving as it was nerve wracking, she had worried the cat might have gotten himself into trouble over the last fortnight while she was away. His inquisitive happy purrs as he prowled around her ankles indicated he was more than okay.

Charlotte grabbed the loaded 9mm kept inside the hollowed bible on her bookcase before she limped any further inside.

The kitchen and living room were checked barrel first with the breakfast bar used as cover, then the bathroom, the bedroom, the balcony, and the bedroom once again just to be sure. Someone had certainly been in the apartment, Charlotte couldn’t shake the feeling. Things were left so perfectly that it felt out of place. Charlotte lowered her gun with a sigh and trod back to the kitchen, well aware of who exactly had been here.

If she needed a more concrete symptom that her suspicions were correct, the Irishwoman was feeling particularly generous. Charlotte found the post-it note stuck to the refrigerator door. She pulled it off and began to read.

 

_ Used your place as a base while you were in the hospital, hope you don’t mind. I replaced your groceries. Your cat is fat and disgusting but I’ve kept him alive and named him Big Bastard, he seems to like it. _

_ P.S: Glad you survived. _

_ P.P.S: Your vibrator needs new batteries. _

_ Love, Becky. _

 

Charlotte screwed the post-it note in her fist and threw it across the room. To add fuel to the fire of her bad mood, she now had to move out of her apartment, ideally today. The workshop out of the city where difficult problems were dealt with still remained a secret. It was an old mechanic shop out in the sticks with no heating, no hot water, and no listening ears for miles around... the perfect location for making bodies more manageable or getting information out of a person before a job could be finished. The owner was long since deceased which Charlotte knew because she was the one who killed him — rule number one of the smart business rule book, never accept a loan from the Hungarian mafia and then object to chopping stolen cars, a lesson the owner learned the hard way. The Hungarians took no issue with her using the abandoned building from time to time after he was dealt with, and in exchange she gave them a more favourable price when work needed to be done.

Charlotte sighed and came to terms with her frustration. For the foreseeable future, until the troublemaker was neutralised, the chop shop would now be her home away from home.

 

…

 

When Charlotte had asked on that fateful day what it was that made her join the police force, Becky told the truth and lied simultaneously. It was a little bit for the gun, for the permitted naughtiness of it. Mostly, she joined the Garda because above all things, she liked to hunt.

It had started as a wain when her grandfather would drive out to the Wicklow mountains with her sat on his lap the entire way there in the rickety excuse of a van to hunt the elusive Sika stags. Beautiful creatures. She wanted to weep for every single one them when the bullets rang out and they fell down in a heaped, huffing piles of horn and fur. It was without a doubt the only period of her life that she had ever felt a faint sense of empathy, the desire to weep for the beasts and yet never the gratification of following through with it. 

To begin with, uncles and old men that she had to call uncle because they were friends of her grandfather had all disapproved of her presence. Mainly because of her sex, mainly because of her disposition. But with age she grew to understand the addictiveness of wielding power like that, hunting predators, outsmarting wild things, crouching in the warm wet night while the strumming and crooning insects sung the beasts to an unsuspicious state. 

By the tender age of eleven, the men would walk quickly and crowd around the van as it returned from Wicklow, eager to see what the wee girl, the little hunter had managed to do. It was an unofficial test that bore more weight than her grandfather ever let her know. Her father had died in the troubles and she was without brothers, the only grandchild of the big man, and with that came expectation.

When he died, she didn’t feel much at all, she had loved him but that was that, she missed him because she was told to miss him, she missed him because the person who snuck her sweets and cleaned her gun when she was feeling too lazy to do it herself was no longer around. If her path had ever been clearly defined it was that she was expected to become a small vestibule of him and take up arms for the cause, one day. The stag hunter would grow up big and strong, take her smarts and put them to use as a leader for their people. Becky didn’t quite grow up big and strong, but she was the best hunter, the keenest strategist, insurmountable in smarts, hungry to hunt things other than stags and deer. There was a darkness in her, an unburdened urge to hunt and kill that was felt and noticed by the others, whispered about.

It was her fifteenth birthday when she watched from a blockade while a Garda shot down a man with a knife in his hands who had been causing trouble… it was love at first sight. By eighteen, her turbulent, passionate streak for strategy and blood had been placed in a uniform. The people called her a traitor, bricked her mother’s windows, did worse than that, but Becky didn’t care. For all intents and purposes, she had a license to hunt. When she entrapped some of the very men who had raised her, who had ate at her table, who had drank and raised arms with her grandfather, convincing them she was only part of the Garda as reconnaissance, the force went so far as to hand her a medal and promote her to the special detective unit after the trial came to a close. 

Entrapping her people wasn’t a particularly difficult task to do, her cheerful and chirpy disposition were qualities that enamoured people and convinced them she wasn’t a threat but rather an ally, a constant and faithful friend. They were the beasts, and she was both the crooning insects that kept them unsuspicious and the speeding bullet that would put them down before they knew it was too late.

The job was enough until it wasn’t anymore. Then, she just disappeared into the night and found herself here — hunting for the sake of hunting, hunting at the behest of whoever paid the best money. She had eventually come to learn of the one called the Queen of Shadows, the woman without a name, the woman who made problems disappear, and it niggled her in places that she didn’t know could be niggled; it left her curious and infuriated by the intensity of her curiosity; until eventually she decided that she would have to hunt her too just for the sake of putting an end to it.

The trouble was that every bit of the hunt only left her with more questions. Every tiny piece of information only left her hungry for more. Every step closer towards capturing the woman she had come to learn was Charlotte Flair, decorated war veteran, keeper of secrets, lurker of shadows, mother of one repulsive cat, only made her wish she could take two steps backwards and draw it out a little more… it was infuriating, and it was delicious, and it was too much fun to let come to such an anti-climactic end as a fatal stabbing in a disused warehouse over little more than a paycheck.

After the cheeky post-it note in the kitchen, Becky imagined that the game would be reciprocated, chasing one another would be a fun way to pass the time between jobs but there was no take up on Charlotte’s part. It was offensive. It was maddening. It was above all things clearly a trap… but Becky couldn’t leave it alone.

God, she wished she had left it alone.

The Queen had been gone for some months, those who knew of her said that she must have got spooked and quit while she was ahead. They were wrong. For beasts like her and Charlotte, there was no such thing as quitting while ahead. There was only hunting, climbing, racing, jaunting and galavanting towards the next big thrill. 

When the newspapers read that a newly-elected house representative had turned up dead, tragically stabbed in the throat during a mugging gone wrong in one of the only camera dark spots of the parking garage beneath his building, Becky knew the game was back on. Only the Queen would be ballsy enough to take on a job with heat and visibility like that. Only the Queen would be brazen enough to stick a message inside of the hit. And only the Queen would be smart enough to get away with it too. 

After a few months of covert nosing, Becky found out through a low-level contact who ran with the Hungarians about the chop shop, conveniently named, where people went when someone wanted them to disappear. It was a lead, one that Becky enthusiastically felt put her at least four steps ahead of Charlotte Flair.

Like an unsuspecting stag beneath the crooning hum of insects singing the warm night to sleep, Becky didn’t realise it was too late until it was too late. She had trekked two miles on foot beneath the cover of early darkness toward the lone building down the road with unmistakable red gas pumps outside just like her contact had described. She was convinced she had the element of surprise… right up until a single barbed dart hit her in the chest from more than a hundred feet out.

The paralysis was almost instantaneous, the warmth and wooziness was coming more than it was going as footsteps from down the road grew closer. She tried to reach for her gun to no use, and so she huffed and kicked and moved like a wounded stag, dragging herself only a tiny distance before the tranquiliser took hold and rendered her completely immobile.

“Thank you for doing the hard part for me,” Charlotte whispered and crouched over her, grinning a bit as she slung the dart gun over her shoulder. “I was getting worried that I might have to come and look for you.” The words were chuckled out victoriously.

Fuck, she wished she had just left this alone.

“Cat got your tongue?” Charlotte prodded her slumped figure with her foot. “It’s alright, I put you down with enough Telazol to stop a lion in its tracks. Stop fighting and go to sleep… there will be plenty of time to catch up once you’re awake.”

Becky was reluctant, fighting the slumber with laboured breaths and everything she had until she couldn’t fight anymore. She faintly felt herself be picked up and thrown over a broad shoulder in a fireman’s lift, carried up the road with her slack head bouncing awkwardly against the dart rifle. Then, there was nothing but darkness.

Hours had passed by the time she came around, groggily, wincing into the bright light of flood lamp pointed directly at her eyes. The pain within her body was unreal, was impressive, was the start of something worth taking notes over. The most palpable points of dull throbbing agony were located on her shoulder blades and the backs of her arms where meat hooks punctured the skin and suspended her off the ground like a car that needed work underneath. Becky closed her eyes, unable to look at the uncontained joyful grin of her captor — which was by far the most agonising part of this whole ordeal.

“So,” Charlotte spoke first after a moment, pleased with herself. “What’s new in your life?”

Becky opened her eyes and watched Charlotte sit down on the chair opposite, folding her long muscular leg over the other with a content look on her face as the accoutrements of her work were lined up on an old, metal roller chest where tools had once been kept.

Whatever this was, the Queen wasn’t in any rush to move things along. It wasn’t surprising. Capital murder was an artform to the Queen. A lengthy creative process if her previous work was anything to go by. Becky just inhaled and tried to ignore her blistering headache.

“You’re awfully quiet today.” Charlotte posed it as a thoughtful acknowledgement.

“Just deep in thought,” Becky whispered through gritted teeth with narrowed eyes, her body swinging slightly from the suspension which only compounded the pain. “Wait.” The coolness of the breeze was felt in deeply private crevices, on stiff cold nipples that she was only now realising were exposed. “Did you…” Her eyebrows craned with absolute shock and the pain was briefly forgotten. “Well that is just completely unchivalrous and shameful!” Becky swung slightly from the ceiling with the outburst.

“You don’t need clothes where you’re going, babe.” Charlotte didn’t even bat an eyelid as she reached over to switch on one of her tools.

“You better be switching that iron on to press my delicates!” Becky hissed, a sudden apprehensive panic rushing through her.

Charlotte smiled and peered at her naked body with fluttering eyes, “I’ll iron your delicates, sure.” She craned a cheeky, unburdened eyebrow and glanced between her legs.

“That is not what I meant and you know that!” Becky flailed a bit more, the agony pulling and tugging at her sore, immobilised limbs. “This is me safewording, Charlotte! I safeword!”

“Well I really did not enjoy being stabbed multiple times, Becky.” Charlotte wagged her manicured finger. “Consequences, consequences.”

Becky became beyond exasperated. “You don’t get to whip out a fucking iron like Marie Kondo when I only used a vegetable knife on you! If I had known this would be the craic I would have at least took a steaming hot piss on you and cut a few fingers off for good measure!”

“Coulda, woulda, shoulda. I could make a joke right now about you not sparking joy, but I’m above that.”

“Get ta fuck.”

Charlotte grinned, her pearly white veneers beaming and on show like a snarling predator from the sheer enthusiasm of her smile. Becky suddenly noticed how strangely overdressed she was for the occasion. Her long blonde hair was coiffed and salon finished, her lipstick carefully applied and touched up, her manicure recent and well kept. It made no sense given that she was staying off the grid. It was as if she had prepared herself for a date, for a deeply important encounter with someone special, and had gone to some lengths to do so too.

Charlotte lowered her voice to a threatening tone, “I am going to hurt you in ways you didn’t know—”

“Why do you look like that?” Becky interrupted, which possibly was not one of her brightest ideas given her current predicament swinging from the rafters by the gristle of her arms and shoulder blades.

“Like what?” Charlotte blinked.

“Pretty, like you’ve done yourself up.”

“What?” Charlotte became defensive and screwed up her brow.

“Do you always get your hair and nails done to torture someone or is it special, just for me?”

“Excuse me—”

“Ah ah,” Becky interrupted again. “It’s polite to return a compliment with a compliment. Shame of my life, anyone would think you were born in a barn.” She rolled her eyes.

The Queen paused and blinked, as if deliberating on whether to hit her with a red-hot burst of steam iron or play along a little bit. Becky hoped it would be the latter.

“Well.” Charlotte cleared her throat, building herself up for it. “I guess you look nice too. I like that little tattoo on your thigh, it’s cute...” Her voice trailed and her eyebrows wiggled as if she hadn’t spent much time thinking about it.

“Thanks,” Becky blushed slightly, surprised by the playfulness. “It’s the coordinates of my first murder, do you have any keepsakes—” Becky stopped mid-sentence as she heard Charlotte grab something heavy. She glanced down as the Queen lunged at her, just as the scalding heat singed the sparse blonde hairs on her thigh. “What the fucking fuck!” The scream was a long bloodcurdling noise as the iron sizzled and bubbled her thrashing leg.

Charlotte pulled it away and sat herself back down, unbothered.

The troublemaker let out the tiniest little whimper, her body slipping into shock to protect her from the horrendous pain. She craned her head forward with a long sob, aware that this was no longer as fun as she had hoped it would be. The skin was seared off completely when she opened her eyes and looked at it, the flesh red and burned in a neat triangular shape where a tattoo used to be. 

She had it coming, she knew that, but it didn’t make it any easier to process. For some unknown reason she thought Charlotte wouldn’t follow through, that she had managed to endear herself too much to the Queen for any sort of real damage to be done. It was hopeful. It was silly. It was beyond naive. And Becky suddenly realised just how fucked she actually was. This woman was more like her in all the worst ways possible than she previously accounted for. This wasn’t just a playful battle of equals… it was a war of sociopaths, it was untred territory, it was dealing with a creature that couldn’t be emotionally manipulated with any sort of ease and somehow that only made it all the more tempting to try.

It was, above all things, dangerously exhilarating, and it only added more layers to her profound curiosity.

“I really didn’t like being stabbed, Becky.” Charlotte reiterated her point. “And as for threatening my niece? Well, that’s a curling iron in one orifice of your choosing.” She lifted her brows, unimpressed.

“What is it you want exactly?” Becky asked.

Charlotte shrugged. “What are you offering?”

“To listen very carefully?”

Charlotte inhaled deeply and picked up the steam iron again.

“Wait!” Becky yelped and swung. “Mary Mother of God! Wait, wait, wait!”

Charlotte paused with an expectant look, the iron steaming in her hand.

“I’m just… trying to understand you.” Becky blinked and stared into her cold, unfeeling blue eyes. “I’m not asking what I can do for you. I’m asking what is it that drives you? What is it that you want?”

Charlotte paused, her cold blue eyes twitching ever so slightly. She huffed and put the iron back down for a moment, folding her arms like an exasperated teacher with an unruly, promising pupil.

“The Interlevin AF10, with all the bells and whistles,” Charlotte answered after a moment, entirely serious.

“Ah, of course.” Becky nodded. “And what exactly is an Interlevin AF10?”

“An act of God. Wireless digital temperature control, self cleaning, twelve adjustable shelves, a four compressor walk in industrial refrigerator unit that could survive a nuclear fallout.” Charlotte’s expression became fierce and impressed, as if she were describing an instrument of war. “There’s a two year waiting list.”

“That’s what you want?” Becky blinked. “A walk in fridge?”

“That’s what I want.”

“Seems achievable.”

“And you?”

“And me what?”

“What is it that you want? What brought you up here?” Charlotte inhaled and stared intently, her icy blue eyes carrying a weight of expectation for the truth. She slowly sat herself down in the chair, her fingers locking together over the ball of her knee.

When the dust settled, when the realisation sunk in that they were doing this for the time being instead of the steam iron, tight, taut, her sore and broken body still tensing, Becky licked her lips and sighed, at a complete loss for an answer.

“Well.” The beads of sweat ran the contour of her brow. “You never called me back.”

Charlotte laughed and picked up the steam iron.

“I’m being serious!” Becky hissed and made her stop. “I mean, don’t get me wrong I probably would have stabbed you a bit more once I got here…” She rolled her eyes and Charlotte seemed to appreciate the honesty, her hand lowering the iron ever so slightly. “But I just came for the sake of coming… because I wanted to see you, mostly.”

“Huh,” Charlotte raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry if breaking into your apartment was a bit much.”

“About that, you didn’t replace my eggs.”

“Sorry about that too.”

“I’ll live.” Charlotte smiled, and Becky got the hint that she might not.

“So you’re going to kill me?”

“Probably sooner rather than later,” Charlotte said.

“How boring,” Becky whispered and rolled her eyes.

The Queen got up out of her seat and fetched something off of the metal roller drawer. It was small, was concealed in her hand, was nothing but a green cap poking out of her fist. She stepped closer and Becky realised it was a syringe.

“Oh for fucksake,” she closed her eyes, exhaled sharply, utterly indignant that this was all that would become of the little hunter of Wicklow mountain. “How anti-climatic.”

“You expected more?” Charlotte lifted a brow as she bit the syringe cap off.

“I expected your best work.” Becky chewed furiously. “The hooks? The iron? All horrendous but second to none… this on the other hand?” She nodded at the syringe. “Pathetic.”

“What can I say? You’re annoying to be around.”

“Well I didn’t want to say anything but you don’t have the bone structure to pull off platinum blonde highlights,” Becky lied just to be acidic.

“My bleeding heart…” Charlotte frowned. “Any last requests?”

“Feel free to fuck my corpse before you bury me if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“What?” Charlotte blinked.

“What?” Becky realised it might have been a bit much.

“Did you just—”

“No.”

“Well alright,” Charlotte looked away, embarrassed, unable to move past it. She shook her head and stared at Becky again, “Did you  _ seriously _ just ask me to—”

“No, you filthy pervert!” Becky lifted her chin.

“Oh, I’m the pervert?” Charlotte nodded mockingly, sticking a hand on her hip. “You need to relax.”

“Well hanging naked girls on meat hooks to torture them doesn’t scream well-adjusted childhood, does it!” Becky stated the obvious.

“Not girls!” Charlotte pinched her brow. “Girl. One. Singular. There is no plural! Stop making this weirder than it is!”

“Oh of course, pardon me, just a couple of girls catching up are we now?” Becky nodded mockingly.

“I can get the steam iron?” Charlotte nodded to the roller cart. “I’m not above burning your face off.”

“But it’s such a pretty face,” Becky whispered, frowning at the thought of being maimed like that. “Alright, sorry, I may have overreacted a little bit. Please, go ahead and murder me with your little syringe of cowardice.”

She watched the Queen look to the ceiling, then look to the floor, exhaling, shaking her head, utterly exasperated and livid by the imposition of the most unruly captive she had ever taken. It was a small thing to be proud of, Becky thought. Death was terrifying, was perhaps the only thing that truly frightened her, but this was a small platitude to take to the grave that made it a bit more bearable.

“Get on with it then, you big lump.” Becky tilted her chin.

The long hypodermic needle was slammed into her chest, the contents pushing inside her pulmonary system, her lungs shuddered, pushed and pulled, hyperventilated slightly and only made the few moments before her death incrementally shorter as a result. Becky held her breath and blinked hard, staring into those icy blue eyes for a symptom of… anything.

Charlotte just pushed a small smile and waited.

“What was it?” Becky felt her swallowing grow harder.

“Something fun.” Charlotte turned around and grabbed her coat off the back of the chair. “It was nice seeing you again, Becky.” She put the coat on and walked out of sight towards the door.

There was no kiss goodbye, no long victorious speech, just footsteps leading further away and then a door being unlocked.

“Wait, you’re not going to stick around?” Becky shouted, panicked slightly as the door opened.

“I want to remember you alive,” it was said almost gently, almost lovingly, lingering slightly before the door finally closed.

She felt drowsy, felt her head become heavier, felt furious that she was being overdosed on opioids and shit ones at that if her lack of high was anything to go by. Becky blinked and tried to stay awake, tried to think of something other than her furious infatuation because Charlotte did not deserve that kind of permanency.

Her grandfather, she remembered him, remembered his cumbersome hands, the smell of rolling tobacco, the flat peaked cap, the chunky knit cardigan. There was no love, no longing, no emotions of any sort really, but she remembered the little girl she once was when he was alive and that was something. She remembered the beasts and how she used to want to cry for them when they fell down. She remembered the way her uncles faces fell and crashed like buildings when the jury returned their guilty verdict. The former brought her more happiness than the later.

And then, slumping forward, she fell asleep.

 

…

 

The sound of birds chirping and cars whizzing up and down the street greeted her ears as she stirred like a lazy half-slumbering animal. Once again, she was sore, was bruised, was wincing into the tenderness of her burned leg, but she was alive and that was more than she had anticipated. Her throat was dry with inactivity and the room was too bright for her wincing eyes. She sighed and ouched as her arms and shoulders attempted movement, forgetting and remembering simultaneously the torture they had been subjected to.

“Ah, you’re awake,” a thick European accent greeted jollily.

Becky snapped her eyes open and looked to the man at the door. He was fat, middle-aged, hairy, badly dressed and wearing enough gold jewellery to put a drag queen to shame. He wasn’t just any Hungarian. He was  **the** Hungarian. He was the crime boss, Laszlo Varga. And if the ancient seventies decor of the bedroom she was currently being kept in was anything to go by, she was in his family home.

Becky swallowed and stared at him, unsure of how or why she was here.

“Relax, little bird.” He smiled and came in, dusting the wooden desk with his hand to perch on the edge of it. “You’ve been asleep for more than a few days, take your time.” He smiled a bit.

“I was dead,” Becky blinked and ordered the events in her mind.

“No, little bird.” Laszlo shook his head. “You were sedated.”

“Sedated?” Becky widened her eyes.

“Well, not before you were punished a little bit.” He nodded at the bandaged thigh and the carefully tended shoulders that had been sewn up and seen to. “If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly did you do to piss the Queen off so bad that she… how do you say… ironed you?” He chuckled with gleaming, impressed eyes.

“I think she was just feeling frisky.” Becky craned a brow and winced as she sat up on the bed.

“Hm,” Laszlo nodded slightly. “She doesn’t usually play so well with others, little bird, you got off easy.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Then tell me your name?”

“Becky.”

“Ah.” His lips fidgeted. “No nickname, then?”

“I don’t need one.”

“Me neither,” he agreed and looked to the sunshine beyond the window. “You’re probably wondering why you’re here…”

“The thought did occur, yes.”

“I need a job doing, a difficult one, a hit the Queen herself won’t take. She brought you here three days ago and said you were the woman for the job. At first I wanted to put you out of your misery like a broken little bird, less problems that way.” Laszlo chuckled. “But it would seem your work is impressive. My nephew, Andras, recommended you highly.” His tone became slightly displeased.

“Your nephew is Andras Wojcik?” Becky winced, and it felt like a detail that she should have known about before killing him as violently as she did.

“Yes, my sister’s boy.” He explained, nodding slightly. “Well, he  _ was _ my sister’s boy. I believe you murdered him and put his balls in his mouth? Please, I don’t need to know which one happened first.” Laszlo raised his hands as Becky’s mouth opened to correct the order of things.

“And you’re not angry about that?”

“I hate my sister.” Laszlo shrugged.

“How lucky for me.” Becky breathed a sigh of relief. “So who is the mark Old Queeny is too scared to whack?” She lifted a curious brow.

“Andre The Cannibal.”

“He died years ago,” Becky chuckled to herself.

She was far from an expert in the field of European gangsters but when it came to Andre The Cannibal she didn’t need to be, he was a myth, an urban legend, a hitman who supposedly ate his victims, a big earner for the downtown morbid tourism scene that the Hungarians had their hands in, and he had died at least thirty years ago if she could just about remember the finer details of his Wikipedia page. Her laughter began to peter slightly as Laszlo’s expression remained fixed and serious.

“You’re not kidding,” Becky blinked in shock.

“Andre… he did a lot of work for us in the early days but he caused a lot of problems, made too much of a stir.” Laszlo shrugged and twiddled his thumbs in thought. “We paid him to disappear and he did just that, the whole thing was very civil.”

“So why now?”

“We made a lot of money with the tourists coming to see the old haunts, the restaurant where he cooked people, the street his burned body was found, these sort of things.” Laszlo mused and clasped his hands. “But… the last few years we’ve been lucky if we’ve filled two buses a week.”

“Wait,” Becky began to laugh in absolute delight. “Not only do you want me to track down a dead man but you want me to make the hit messy and loud so people know he was alive in the first place?” It was as if all her luck had come at once.

“Bingo.” Laszlo grinned and pointed his finger like it was a gun. “Andre lives, Andre dies again, someone writes a book, Netflix makes a documentary, everybody is happy, I get my tourists back. The Queen doesn’t like tracking people down and he’s been gone for a long time so it won’t be easy work. She brought you to me with high recommendation, said you would be the woman to get it done.”

“Well colour me flattered!” Becky singsonged. “How soon can I get to work?”

“Heal first, work later.” Laszlo stood up from the desk. “How much will your work cost?”

“Do what you love and you never work a day in your life, my mother used to say that.” Becky sighed happily and pushed a slackened smile. “Half a million, all of my expenses covered, and your loveliest smile.” She turned back to the Hungarian jokingly, anticipating that negotiations would start and he would work her down to the number she actually wanted.

“Done.” Laszlo smiled so wide his fuzzy red cheeks bunched and bulged. “Rest for now, I’ll call the Queen and tell her you’re off limits for a while.”

“What?”

“You didn’t think it would really be so easy, did you?” He nodded at the bandaged wounds. “She is a cat and you are her little bird. Just because she let you live this time doesn’t mean she isn’t planning bigger things.”

“Well now that does sound exciting…” Becky felt herself fall in love with that bastard woman a little bit more.

 

…

 

Charlotte began to wonder if the little troublemaker was alive or dead, she had anticipated retaliation or maybe even a postcard at the very minimum. Laszlo kept tight lipped on the matter, said he was equally in the dark but that the pre-paid cards were being used and things seemed to be progressing as expected. It should have been easy to let go of, their last meeting had made them more than square by anyone’s standards. But Charlotte just couldn’t put the bitch down, still, now, months after the fact.

It was more than infuriating, and it had began to affect her work too, the preoccupation, the wondering, the slight infatuation of it all. She had barely enjoyed the last three kills and one of them was a Saudi Prince. A real life prince. The son of a king—albeit one of the middle ones with a penchant for bad business deals who weren’t too important in the grand scheme of things—but the son of a king nonetheless. It should have been one for the scrapbook but instead it felt like a chore, like a small way to pass the time until the troublemaker could crop up on her radar again.

Charlotte’s phone buzzed on the table of the airport bar that was now setting up to be home until her delayed flight was ready for departure.

**Laszlo Varga, 1 message.**

‘Turn on the news,’ it simply read. She exhaled and already knew what was coming. The phone was slung back down and her laptop was opened. She typed in the address of different news outlets in different tabs, all of them loading with similar headlines and gruesome, censored pictures:

_ Cannibal Hitman Thought To Be Dead FOR THIRTY YEARS Discovered Mutilated In Downtown Street Where His Infamous Slayings Took Place. _

_ Pictured: The City Street Where Andre The Cannibal, Thought To Be Dead For Thirty Years, Was Discovered Dismembered By A GIRL SCOUT. _

_ Reign Of Terror Comes To Final Close As Hungarian Mobster Famed For Eating His Victims Meets A Fitting Fate. _

_ Buzzfeed’s Buzz Of The Day: Ten Reasons Why Trump May Give The Man Responsible For Murdering Andre The Cannibal The Presidential Medal Of Freedom. _

_ Andre The Cannibal: The Failings Of A Police Investigation, And The City Commissioner Who Is Expected To Resign In A Statement This Afternoon. _

The Irishwoman had certainly been busy. Charlotte scanned the headlines and chewed the inside of her mouth, infuriated by how impressive it all was. She closed the tabs one by one until a different headline all together caught her attention.

_ Police Search For Witnesses After Local Restauranter Discovers His Walk In Refrigerator Stolen After Closing The Business For A Period Of Mourning. _

It made Charlotte smile and look away, she brought herself back and read the headline again, then once more just to make sure she wasn’t seeing things. She scrolled down the page and looked at the blurry images picked up by the security cameras. 

Bingo.

She would recognise that ass anywhere.

 

…

 

“Tell me you’re not a little bit impressed!” Becky said chirpily to the shocked, disbelieving face at the door.

“Is that the Interlevin AF10?” Charlotte couldn’t take her eyes off of the bomb shelter in her workshop. “All the bells and whistles?”

“All the bells and whistles.” Becky nodded and clambered down from the workshop table.

Charlotte stood there and blinked, her expression mute, her brow furrowed slightly, her eyes registering reality but her brain disbelieving it, still. It was cute to watch. It was everything Becky had hoped it would be, which was a low bar of expectation to meet considering the only thing Becky had hoped for was the absence of steam irons and other mean things of that nature.

“How did you even...”

“I killed the owner’s mum,” Becky whispered softly, smile slackening, nibbling her bottom lip as if it was the sweetest gesture she could muster. “He closed up shop for a few days so I snuck in when no one was around.”

“You just snuck in and stole a walk in refrigerator?” Charlotte rubbed her chin, nodding as if it was comprehensible, nodded even though she still didn’t understand, completely gliding over the part where someone’s mother had been suffocated with a pillow.

“Well, Laszlo lended me a crane and a flatbed truck.”

“Of course he did.” It compounded Charlotte’s frustration. “You kill Andre The Cannibal, paint the whole of Ninth Street with his body parts, and then you steal a fucking walk in refrigerator all in the same weekend.” She thrusted her hand in the direction of her new fridge. “Of course you did that,” Charlotte quietly rubbed her temples.

“You’re right it is a bit impressive, isn’t it?”

“You’re not armed.” Charlotte suddenly noticed, looking her up and down, weighing up her chances. “Awfully presumptuous of you.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t,” Becky opened her leather jacket and her gun glinted the light.

“Is this you bringing me a gift or you looking for a mexican standoff?” Charlotte opened her own jacket and lifted an eyebrow, the handle of her pistol sticking out slightly.

“Maybe both?” Becky smirked and closed her jacket.

“I will shoot you.” It wasn’t said with any sort of meaningful conviction.

“I missed you,” Becky said it as though it were the easiest thing in the world to say. “Besides… you could have killed me but you gave me the Andre Sopa job instead, this is just me returning a gift with a gift.”

Charlotte hmph’d and seemed to become stuck. “It’s starting to become unsettling how you just show up like this.” The confession was exhaled earnestly.

“You could hide from me if you wanted to, my guess is that you don’t.”

“You’re easy to become interested with.”

“Ooft,” Becky became pleased. “I’ll take that as a compliment, Charlotte Flair.”

“What is it you want, Becky?”

“I honestly don’t know…” Becky exhaled and swallowed. “At first I wanted to kill you, and I think I still might. Right now I just want to understand you, I suppose?”

Charlotte became quiet and thought about it for a moment.

“Do you want to stay for dinner?”

“I’d like that.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Dinner, as it turned out, was a special codeword that the Queen understood to mean neat whiskey and birthday cake leftovers served on paper plates. Becky had no complaints. The war table where maps, person profiles, and other finer details of her cases usually took priority, were pushed aside to make room for a meagerly set table. Becky pulled a long sip of liquor and dipped her finger in the pink frosting on her slice of cake, trying to think of conversation suitable for two women who by her own count had attempted to murder one another on no less than two known occasions.

“So who’s birthday are we celebrating?” Becky tried to draw conversation from the silent woman opposite, licking the buttercream off her finger a bit.

Charlotte wiggled her brows and took a sip from her canteen. “I’ll give you two guesses and you won’t need the second,” she sighed and put the metal mug back down.

“Cute, what did you get your niece for her birthday?”

“A G36 Airsoft rifle, in pink.”

“In pink?” Becky craned a brow.

“To go with the Malibu dream mansion.” Charlotte smirked and slung her feet up on the adjacent chair. “She’s a woman of fine taste.” Her eyebrows lifted, the smirk transforming into a fond smile.

“So she is,” Becky nodded along and nibbled the sugary dinner. “A G36 is a fine gift for a wane. I was a late bloomer, maybe seven when I got my first rifle…”

“What make and model?”

“Eh, it was a long time ago.” She pretended she didn’t know the answer. 

Becky remembered the little hunting rifle that had once been her father’s when he was a wee boy, the cherry wood barrel that had her initials carved in the side, the mean recoil that nearly dislocated her shoulder the first time she fired it. The rifle was the only thing she had brought to this country when she left the last. God knows why, it wasn’t useful for anything bigger than pigeons. Still, those details felt like ones that were worth keeping private. The Queen was a skilled operative, a trained interrogator, a specialist in the art of exploiting weaknesses. Becky wanted to understand her more than she had wanted anything in a long time but it wasn’t a reciprocal affair.

“Becky…” Charlotte said it with hesitation, with conviction, with a weighted brow that meant business. “I need you to know that if you ever try to find Molly and Emily again, well—” There was a little scoff, a lighthearted noise, as if they were discussing menial things unrelated to the kidnapping of her sister and niece. “I will find the thing you love and I will make you feel that rage.” She blinked coldly and supped a thumb of whiskey.

“I don’t love anyone or anything,” Becky shrugged, and it was the absolute truth. “But for what it’s worth I don’t care much for hunting children… your wee niece is safe is what I’m trying to say, but your sister? Well, we’ll see if you play nicely,” she whispered the last part, eyebrows moving playfully.

Charlotte leaned deeply into her seat and undid the top button of her crisp white shirt. There was a long sigh, followed by a pause. Becky felt herself be looked up and down like a conundrum, like a question, like a series of nonlinear events that needed to be ordered, a thing that couldn’t be understood, a thing that Charlotte  _ wanted _ to understand. The Queen just sighed again and slipped her long fingers over the rim of her cup, her cool stare shifting to its contents.

“What made you like this?” Charlotte’s voice was small, defeated, annoyed that she didn’t have answers to the big questions. “Who hurt you?” It was breathed out with a repulsed expression as if she wanted to right those wrongs.

“Show me the respect of asking properly and I might be inclined to reciprocate with a somewhat genuine answer.” Becky didn’t pull any punches, unmoved and unentertained.

Charlotte stopped and looked deep into her eyes.

“What are you talking about—”

“The slouching, the unbuttoning of your shirt, both designed to establish a sense of relaxation and familiarity, I assume.” The Irishwoman nodded knowingly and leaned forward, resting her chin on her knuckles. “The emotion in your stare too — which I’m assuming you added to give off a signal that you are deeply attracted to me. Also, the way you asked those questions, as if you so  _ deeply _ care, every microcosm of it all trying to butter up my id and ego. That way I’ll be inclined to gloat, to overshare, to give you what you want because you’re no longer a threat.” Becky pouted a bit. “Am I getting warm?”

The emotions melted from Charlotte’s face like a mask that could be worn or removed at whim, her expression was cold, clinical, unfeeling and all the more beautiful because it wasn’t weighed down with such burdens, she was an apex predator once again.

“You got me.” Charlotte drank a little more whiskey and rubbed the back of her neck, a deep sigh radiating from her chest. “So who molested you as a child? An uncle? Your grandfather?” She leaned forward with a slight sense of interest.

“No one.”

“Huh, well I didn’t see that coming.”

“Really?”

“It’s just you mentioned before about not hurting children and it seems pretty off brand for you… like maybe there was a reason…” Her eyebrows lifted slightly, emphasising her previous assessment.

“I wasn’t molested as a child.” Becky grew indignant and folded her arms.

“Whatever you say, chief.” She shrugged it off, as if she didn’t believe it in the slightest.

Becky sighed and slung herself back against the chair in frustration, her lips becoming thin with anger. “They’re stupid. They’re too easy. There’s no sense of victory in it. Could I kill a baby and sleep like a log? Sure, I could! I just wouldn’t wake up the next morning with any sense of pride over the fact. It would be like Floyd Mayweather boxing a Liberian refugee who had both their arms cut off in the civil war… we all know who would win that fight.”

“A Liberian refugee who had their arms cut off during the civil war?” Charlotte lifted her eyebrow at the analogy.

“Oh don’t pretend you haven’t laughed at the photos on BBC News too!” Becky rolled her eyes. “Their little jagged stumps twitching like baby penguin wings.” She cracked up a bit, amused by the cuteness of it.

“So… you’re just like this?” Charlotte mused, a small smile forming. “Ever since you were a kid?”

“Fraid so.”

“Me too.”

“I doubt that.”

“You do?”

Becky nodded. “Your sister and niece, you love them, and that’s troubling for a supposed psychopath.”

“Debatable.” Charlotte shrugged.

“If you don’t love them…”

“Why do I play house with them?”

“Well, it begs the question.”

“They love me, and I love that they love me.” Becky got the feeling it wasn’t the entire truth of the matter, but she didn’t pry further. “Does the granddaughter of Patrick Kelly have anyone left to love her?” Charlotte made it known that she had done her research.

The quietness of the warehouse, the hollow hum of chains and metal, the abundant coldness of it all, that was what filled the absence of a response. Becky leaned back and blinked, unamused and more inclined to kill Charlotte than she had been for at least a solid thirty minutes. She moved the near-empty metal canteen of scotch aside and went straight for the bottle, uncorking it with her teeth and supping a searing glug. 

Becky didn’t like the prying of her past one bit.

“Touched a nerve?” Charlotte pursed her lips in amusement.

“I brought you a fridge and you’re being very rude.”

“You did do that,” Charlotte softened. “I’m still going to kill you one day.”

“Now now, not over dinner, dear.” Becky reminded.

“Where are you sleeping tonight?”

“Here.” Becky didn’t hesitate. “Though I don’t imagine we’ll be doing much sleeping…”

 

…

 

Charlotte wasn’t stupid enough to fall asleep next to the woman she had branded with a triangular, puckered scar, still pinkened with newness, still sore to the touch. Charlotte wasn’t stupid enough to do that… right up until she was.

She awoke and reached for the gun underneath the bed, simultaneously, half-asleep, prepared, just in case.

“Easy tiger,” a sleepy, Irish voice chuckled from the foot of the bed. “You didn’t think I was going to slit your throat in your sleep, did you?”

Charlotte blinked away the sleep from her eyes and peered at the beautiful woman at the end of her bed, stood there in a borrowed dress shirt rolled up to the elbows, her long copper hair stark against the crisp white collar, her chocolate brown eyes glimmering mischievously.

“What are you holding behind your back?” Charlotte nodded to the tucked away limb.

The Irishwoman pouted and produced a carving knife.

“Fine,” she huffed and rolled her eyes. “You got me.”

Charlotte pulled the safety with her thumb and pointed the handgun at her.

“You have four seconds to disappear,” the Queen warned.

“Four?” Becky furrowed her brow. “That’s a weird number. Why not three? Or five? You’re not feeling yourself love, you should get some more sleep—”

Charlotte fired a warning shot millimeters above her head.

“Fine!” Becky moved briskly. “Leaving!”

 

…

 

The sex wasn’t anything to write home about. It was rough, it was bitey, it was a fight for dominance more than it was the meeting post of two star crossed lovers. The teeth marks on the inside of Charlotte’s thigh were blueing and green, still, two weeks later. Her feelings for Becky felt a lot like that bruise; dealt with, post-fact, fading, and yet still there was a physiological change, an outline of her that had been left within Charlotte that she just couldn’t shake off.

Charlotte peered down at her captive, the tracks of his tears dribbling out from underneath the blindfold fastened around his head. There was a small trickle of blood, an innocent amount really. She had only pistol whipped him twice, and not even full-force. It only made the fact he was sobbing all the more pathetic.

“Well?” She shoved the barrel of the gun under his chin.

The man shivered and wept.

“If… if what you’re saying is true…” He stuttered and licked his lips. “It would still raise a lot of questions about your diagnosis…”

“Go on,” Charlotte urged impatiently.

“You say you don’t have feelings for her but she presented an immediate threat to your safety, you could have killed her, you had the gun in your hand, but... you didn’t.” He swallowed and trembled. “It isn’t consistent with psychopathy.”

“Doc, I was worried you might say that.” Charlotte sighed and leaned against the desk. “So you’re saying I should have killed her?”

“No!” The kidnapped psychiatrist wrangled a bit in the chair. “You shouldn’t kill anyone! That’s the whole point!”

“Your tone is getting very sharp,” Charlotte noted.

“Psychopathy is a scale, a spectrum, it’s a line drawn in the sand with people like me on one side and people like you…” It was said carefully, tacitly, as if not to cause offense. “On the other.”

“I like her a lot,” Charlotte complained at the realisation. “I should probably kill her before it gets out of hand.”

“You know what, you do whatever you think is best. Can you… can you untie me now?” The psychiatrist wiggled.

Charlotte laughed. The psychiatrist’s arms were tied at such an angle behind his back that his shoulders looked like wiggling baby penguin wings. The temptation to cut them off occurred, briefly, but then she thought about the blood spatter and inevitable attention it would cause in the media from the goriness.

“Pop goes the weasel.” Charlotte shot him between the eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __  
>  **AN:[put this song on repeat with the volume kinda low if you really wanna live the dream](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Da-AG3UqJ1JA&t=MjI3ZWIwMzFjN2JmZjYzOWY4MDFlMjI4YTFjZjhjOWZlYzE0MTA0YyxjM2xZMUFEVQ%3D%3D&b=t%3Ar60TQNz-3oTyN6aQhFQRig&p=https%3A%2F%2Fhalogensleep.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F183805858691%2Fpour-your-gasoline-on-me-lets-burn-the-whole&m=1)**   
> 

“I have a job for you. One that you won’t like, but one that I need your expertise on.” The phone call from Laszlo wasn’t even started with any pretense.

“I’m in business with the Collective presently… you know how they feel about side jobs.” Charlotte sighed and rubbed her temple. “Give me two weeks then I’ll be back on the market.”

“I don’t have two weeks, Queen.” She heard Laszlo grumble and scratch his chin. “However I do have a blank cheque in front of me and two Filipino senators who need to… how do you say… bite the dirt?”

“Bite the dust?” Charlotte scoffed and plonked herself down on the hood of her car.

“Mhm, that.”

“Well you called the right woman.”

The vantage point from where she had parked was vast and beautiful. The sun was setting over the treeline in the distance, and the clouds became candyfloss pink because of it. Charlotte leaned back and sighed in contentment with the view. Then, she became decidedly intrigued by the job Laszlo was offering.

“So why is it you need me, specifically?” She tucked the phone between her chin and shoulder, freeing up her hands so they could pat down her pockets for a loose cigarette, a rare pleasure these days. “Can’t you just… I don’t know… call a local service? The Philippines sounds like a big road trip.” She put the cigarette in her mouth and clicked the lighter.

“Some of my shipping routes pass through the ports in their districts. The cunts took money under the table on the understanding that they would leave my business dealings alone, but, well, election season has come back around.” Laszlo chuckled loudly, his laughter transforming into a deep, throaty cough. “Apparently the Gooks are going straight now. It’s a problem, a billion dollar problem—”

“Laszlo you’re saying a lot of racist shit that I don’t have time to wade through.” The bridge of her nose was pinched, the cigarette puffed a little harder in exasperation. “I don’t care why it is you want them dead I just want to know why it is you need me…”

“They have the Duterte death squads backing them.” Laszlo sighed, and Charlotte imagined his sweaty, greasy knuckles swiping down his bowling shirt, then reaching round to rub the back of his bulbous neck in consideration of his problem. “There isn’t a contractor in the entire Philippines stupid enough to take the job.”

“I’ll try not to be offended that my name was the first one that came to mind then.” She tapped the ash on her cigarette.

“You fly in, you kill them and plant a little evidence, you fly home. As far as Duterte is concerned the senators were involved in a bad business deal with the Chinese cartels. It will be like we did him a favour,” Laszlo said, as if were the easiest feat in the world. “I need someone I can trust, I need you.”

“Do you know what I need?” Charlotte blew a cloud of smoke and thought about it seriously. “I need two million dollars, a plot of land so I can free up some space in my refrigerator, and three anti-aircraft rocket-propelled grenades. Yep, mhm, that’s what I need.” She nodded decisively and stubbed her cigarette out.

There was a scoff and some laughter on the other end of the phone. “One million dollars. I’ll give you two rocket grenades but it will take me a few weeks to get them, and as for the land? My brother looks after the construction unions… we can figure something out…”

“Two weeks.”

“You leave in four days, I want you there by Wednesday.”

“You’re breaking my balls, Laszlo,” Charlotte warned sternly. “I’ll leave Friday, I’ll be back Sunday morning. I want the million up front, I want to fly first class, I want you to book me into a presidential suite, and I want enough chilled Dom Perignon to put Carrie Fisher down. Do you understand me, Laszlo? Am I being crystal clear?”

“Fine, fine!” He bristled and sighed. “What name should I put the reservation under?”

Charlotte paused and smiled.

“Put it under Becky Lynch.”

 

…

 

The presidential suite was precisely that. It was sleek, stately almost, the walls were embossed with gold leaf detailing and the furnishings were exquisitely carved from cherry wood. It made a nice change from rustiness of the chop shop. Charlotte sunk deeper into the abundant bubbles and traced her finger over the edge of the copper bathtub. The tub was sat proudly on a white marble platform in the center of the bathroom, and she had wrinkled in the hot water for at least an hour while polishing off a bottle of Dom between thumbing the pages of her newest case. A luxurious day in the office by anyone’s standards.

Rosamie Aquina and Emmanuel Bautista-Cembrano, those were the two senators she was tasked with killing. Their security detail would present more than a problem if the intel she had collated was anything to go by. Laszlo wasn’t wrong when he said the Duterte death squads were out in full force to protect the senators. She turned the images over one by one and saw the face of one man in particular always caught in the background, General José Roberto Ocampo, otherwise known affectionately as The Boogeyman. He was the man tasked with keeping them alive on the road to the elections. It helped that he had a penchant for hard liquor and loose women, Charlotte knew so long as she created a decoy for The Boogeyman and his soldiers with those two distractions she could finish off the senators and be on a flight out of here by Sunday morning.

The phone rang.

“Hello?” Charlotte put the call on loudspeaker and sunk back down into the searing water.

“Oh she’s a killer queen! Gunpowder, gelatine! Dynamite with a laser-beam! Guaranteed to blow your mind!” An abundantly cheerful voice singsonged down the phone. “Bow, bow bow bow!” she hummed the bassy guitar solo.

Charlotte sighed. “Are you finished—”

“Ooooh, recommended at the price, insatiable an appetite!” The singing voice cracked with the attempt at a high note. “Extraordinarily nice, she’s a killer queeeen!!”

Charlotte paused for a moment, her lips twitching in annoyance. “Are you done—”

“To avoid complications she never kept the same address, in conversation she spoke just like a baroness!” The Irishwoman sung out of tune. “Met a man from China, I nearly stabbed her in the vagina, she pulled a gun to shoot me, didn’t think she could do it to me but she’s just that way inclined!”

“Those aren’t the lyrics and you know that.” Charlotte sighed and rubbed her brow, exasperated and deeply out of her element with the insane woman singing down the phone to her. “What do you want, Becky?”

“Can’t I just call my girlfriend to say hello?”

“I’m not your girlfriend.”

“Ah, pish! Of course you’re my girlfriend!” Becky sounded offended. “We had dinner, we slept together, I tried to stab you while you were asleep and you fired a warning shot near my very lovely and unscathed face… which you _surely_ can’t still have your panties in a twist about? You’ve gave me the cold shoulder for a month now!”

Charlotte looked up at the ceiling and made the water splash with her frustrated, fidgety movements. “I’m not your girlfriend, Becky,” she lowered her tone.

“Well, alright.” Becky sadly sighed. “Does this mean you don’t want the gift I sent up to your room?”

“What gift might that be exactly?”

There was an abrupt knock to the door of the hotel suite.

“That one.” She could tell Becky was smirking on the end of the phone. “Do you like surprises, Charlotte?”

“Actually, no.” Charlotte grumbled and clambered out of the bathtub. “I hate them.”

“Even when they’re from your girlfriend?”

“You’re not my girlfriend.”

“I stole an industrial fridge for you.”

“You’re still not my girlfriend.”

“Rude of you,” Becky scoffed.

“Mhm,” Charlotte ignored her and trudged through the large suite towards the door. “What am I going to find on the other side of this door exactly?”

“Something you should probably take the safety catch off your gun for.”

“Bold of you to assume I ever have the safety on.”

If she anticipated anything, it was Becky standing out in the hall in lacy black lingerie underneath a trenchcoat and a small knife in hand for good measure, if only because Becky always had that damn knife glinting in her fist and she was feeling hopefully optimistic that lingerie would be involved too. The thought made Charlotte smile as she padded through the long marbled hallway, which in turn made her furrow into a frown because the thought of Becky randomly showing up was supposed to be instantaneously infuriating and in no way capable of earning a small smile. It was a problem for the next psychiatrist, Charlotte told herself and put it away.

The door was knocked again, far more impatiently this time.

Becky sighed on the phone. “I wouldn’t keep whoever it is waiting—”

“Goodbye, Becky.” Charlotte hung up before Becky could taunt her anymore.

The hotel robe was tightened around her damp muscles and the sash was loosely knotted at her waist. She opened the door and became instantly surprised, though she made sure not to show it in the slightest. The man in front of her was most definitely not Becky Lynch. He tucked his cap underneath the armpit of his tunic dress jacket and worked his jaw muscles from side to side, slightly irritated. Charlotte bit the inside of her bottom lip so hard it drew blood to the surface.

“Don’t ever make me knock the door twice,” General Ocampo growled and stormed past her, shoving his dress cap into her arms.

Charlotte stalled, entirely out of her element and slightly embarrassed because of it. Two of Ocampo’s men stood guard in the hotel hallway and closed the door behind their boss. She breathed a small sigh of relief. If they were aware of who she was, or, rather, what she was, then they certainly wouldn’t have sealed Ocampo in what was now for all intents and purposes the most expensive slaughterhouse this side of the horizon.

“Hang these up neatly,” Ocampo dolled out the orders with a light foreign accent and began unbuttoning his dress jacket. “I paid for four hours and that’s what I expect, not a minute more and not a minute…” He stopped and looked at the uncorked champagne on the dining room table, his eyes widening. “Did your madame never teach you it’s rude to drink without your guest? Prostitutes, no manners!” His eyebrow craned with pure disgust.

“Apologies,” Charlotte said meekly and dipped her head to hide her gritted teeth, the cogs turning and chewing against one another in her mind as she tried to piece this together. “I thought you might like to have a glass waiting for you… I wasn’t prepared for you to be so prompt.” She played along to save her skin.

“You weren’t?” He seemed offset by the statement.

“My mistake. Busy important men like you? Well, they tend to run late.” Charlotte lifted her head and made the best out of an unexpected situation. She deduced from Ocampo’s pomp and self-importance that a sense of vulnerability and weakness might do the trick, and so she went with that. “You’re… well… you’re actually my first client…”

“Stop talking.” Ocampo instructed and turned his back to her, filling the champagne flutes on the table with the uncorked Dom Perignon. “We are what we are, there’s no need for pretense or illusion. I am a man. You are a woman. I am a man with few female acquaintances. You are a prostitute. And so we must be the creatures we are in candor, crave the things we crave without shame.” Ocampo turned back around and offered a half glass of champagne. “Here, drink.” He nodded down to the flute with a weak nod.

Her gun and professional accoutrements were left by the bed still in the package Laszlo sent ahead. It presented two problems, first and foremost, the man she would inevitably have to kill in order to kill the people she was paid to kill was standing in front of her under the assumption she was a prostitute… and she was without the tools to kill him quickly and silently. The second problem, which was essentially the root cause of the first problem, was that she expected Becky to be on the other side of the door which was why she didn’t bother to get the gun in the first place. It was stupid. It was beyond stupid. It was stupid for a number of reasons, the first being that had it of been Becky, she would have been in more immediate need of a gun than she was presently.

Charlotte sipped the champagne and remained the perfect picture of calm, because she was calm. This was a puzzle at best, a brain teaser with higher stakes. Becky had sent this man here for a reason after all.

“Please, sit down,” Ocampo said, gesturing to the suave living room.

“Most men go straight for the bedroom?” Charlotte nodded down the hall.

Ocampo smiled slightly. “I paid for four hours,” he said, turning on his feet to lead the way to the sofa. “And **I** will tell **you** when it’s time to move to the bedroom.” A stern look was shot over his shoulder.

Charlotte stared at the man unbuttoning his collar, who somehow managed to be a problem that needed to be eradicated and a clue to a puzzle she wasn’t sure merited solving, though she didn’t have time to make any immediate decisions. Instead, she blinked and followed him to the living room.

“Well then, how exactly would you like to fill the next four hours?” Charlotte pretended to be intrigued.

They sat down on the sofa and Ocampo paused, he looked at her strangely. The low ambient light from the golden fixtures highlighted the sheen of sweat across his brow. He looked out of his element, nervous maybe. The sudden flitting of his eyes showed a deep sense of submission. It was stark in contrast from the first assessment she made of his character. Charlotte felt as though there was something missing, a piece of context that she hadn’t quite deduced yet. Ocampo rubbed his knee and swallowed hard, looking around for a moment.

It was as if he was embarrassed.

It was as if something wasn’t going to plan.

Charlotte placed her champagne flute on the coffee table and leaned across towards him. She placed a hand on the top of his knee, her fingers brushing against the tips of his own. Ocampo instinctively pulled his hand away. Bingo, Charlotte realised. There was a pretext to this that she was still unaware of, one that Ocampo _wanted_ her to be aware of and was growing all the more frustrated because she wasn’t. She thought it might be a kink or fetish of some sort...

 _A roleplay,_ it dawned.

“Just so we’re crystal clear…” Charlotte licked her lips and thought of how to phrase it. “I need to know what your limits are for the scene… descriptively and specifically.” She leaned in with a small smile, and he became a man out of his element just like that, his stern exterior dissolving into something weak and tacit.

“No bruises.” Ocampo breathed heavily and swallowed in embarrassment. “Our shared contact said you were a skilled dominatrix… that the role of a seductive hitwoman was your speciality and you would only be in Manilla for a few days. I had to meet with you.” He stared at her with a languid look in his eyes, and his voice barely hovered above an embarrassed whisper. “I want you to pretend you were hired to kill me. I thought we could pretend that you’re using the disguise of a prostitute as your cover?”

“Excuse me?”

“Is that not—”

“Stop.” Charlotte lifted her hand and screwed her expression. “A prostitute?”

“Well.” Ocampo became nervous. “If you have a better idea…”

Like that she was rigid and perfectly herself, overwhelmed and underwhelmed, simultaneously. She wasn’t sure if this was a puzzle or a game, a thing to be solved or a thing to toy with for no reason beyond the simple pleasure of finding a new way to kill someone. She hung there for a moment, blinking slowly and certain that this situation was, surprisingly, a gift from the Irishwoman in both name and intent.

Charlotte smiled and sat back, rigid and domineering, existing as herself in truth and candor, wanting the things she wanted without shame. Though, shame was probably the wrong word altogether because she had never really experienced anything close to shame before. Instead, she wanted the things she wanted with a profound sense of consent because Ocampo wanted them too, or at least he thought he did, which opened up a thousand possibilities that had never been there before.

“I am a hitwoman who has been sent to kill you,” Charlotte exhaled the weighty confession. “Well, not you specifically. I was sent to kill the people you protect by the people they pissed off. It’s a complicated situation… most hit jobs are…” She wiggled her eyebrows with a faint sense of amusement. “You’ll forgive me for describing you as ‘collateral damage’ when I get home.”

There’s a moment, when people realise they are well and truly fucked, on the praecipe of death, where their eyes narrow as if their soul is slipping and retreating inwards, trying with all it’s might to protect itself and hide from the oncoming slaughter. Instead, Ocampo’s eyes widened and pearled with arousal. It was unusual, but not entirely disappointing.

“You haven’t tied me up.” Ocampo became unsure of himself, as if he wanted to suggest bondage but was too embarrassed to do so. “I could run… or shout for my men… I could attack you!” He glared and didn’t mean it in the slightest, Charlotte could already tell.

“You won’t do that.” Charlotte glanced to the ceiling and rubbed her hands. “The woman you think is our shared contact? Well, she’s a hitwoman too. It’s a long story, I wouldn’t go as far to describe us as friends. I mean, she once tied me up in a warehouse and nearly stabbed me to death to steal a job…” Her blonde hair was pulled back to reveal a small deep scar on the side of her neck. “It was a hell of a day at the office.” The memory earned a faint smile. “Still, the point I’m trying to make is that if she hasn’t already killed the men standing outside of this room then she’s probably on her way to kill the people you protect — which means I’m about to lose my fee and Duterte will make your death a hell of a lot more painful than I intend to.” She lifted her flute and took a sip of champagne. “I would recommend you don’t divert the path you’re already on, Ocampo.” The glass was placed back down with a satisfied sigh.

Beyond the marble and regality of the suite, there was no noise, not the slightest of sounds, just overwhelming silence. It was exhilarating. It was thrumming with possibility, and for all Charlotte knew perhaps Becky had already killed the men outside, or perhaps she was already on her way to finish the job and undercut the deal with Laszlo and all of this was just a rouse in the meantime to keep her preoccupied. It was infuriating, it was exciting, it was enough to plant the tiniest seed of giddiness in Charlotte’s gut. Ocampo seemed giddy too, his breathing steeped in arousal and excitement, though for entirely different reasons.

“Your bondage is psychological,” Ocampo whispered and nodded. “You’re so convincing,” it was exhaled, impressed and full of arousal.

“You said no bruises,” Charlotte shrugged. “So, how about we jump to the part where you tell me where the senators are staying and in return I won’t gouge your eyes out with my thumbs?” She didn’t so much as blink.

“Is that how you killed the last man who displeased you, Queen?” His dark eyes glimmered with excitement.

Charlotte sighed and became impatient. “No,” she said with a rub against the back of her neck. “The last man I killed was a psychiatrist who thought I had a school girl crush on the hitwoman I was telling you about before… he thought it meant I wasn’t a psychopath.” There was a deep exhale, and then her eyebrows lifted. “I shot him between the eyes and made it look like he was having an affair with his secretary and things turned bitter. Last I heard, she’s doing time at Rikers Island.”

“So you’re a lesbian psychopath assassin?” She watched his trousers tent.

“Wow, you really chose the operative adjectives there.” Charlotte shook her head with faint disapproval. She blinked, thinking about it for a moment with a furrow of her brow. “I wouldn’t say I’m a lesbian. I wouldn’t say I’m anything. People are aesthetically pleasing but god, are they boring.” She closed her eyes. “Well, everyone except…” The sentence trailed and never finished.

“Except who?” Ocampo leaned forward with hope for a satisfying answer.

“Are you expecting me to say you?”

“I’ve paid a lot of money.”

“Of course you did.” Charlotte nodded and realised she wouldn’t earn a dime of what was now in Becky’s back pocket. “Tell me, do you enjoy what you do? The killing? The violence? The finality of it?” She leaned forward with the flute stem rolling between her fingertips.

He pulled back a bit and sat up, stiffened and offset, as if he wasn’t expecting just how far this roleplay would depend on the crux of their deepest personal truths. He swallowed and rubbed his chin, thinking and considering his answer, and on some level Charlotte appreciated both the frankness and absurdity of this unfurling situation. Ocampo reached for the glass of champagne on the coffee table and took a sip himself.

“I enjoy being powerful, who doesn’t?” Ocampo forced a small smile and placed it back down.

She saw through the charade like a knife slicing through butter. There was a heavy sense of guilt that Ocampo was hiding but just not well enough. It repulsed her, offended her almost, it was the same feeling that brewed within her during the war years, which were now a faint and nearly long-forgotten memory. There were a few men she served with who joined specifically for the license to kill another human being, and then when they finally did, they came home changed for all the wrong reasons. The sense of power lasted only for a little while, the exhilaration of it, the hero complex, and then after a period of time all that remained was the burden of guilt, the regret of playing God.

Charlotte didn’t see the act of killing that way. To take a life, to snuff it out and watch it fade, it was like listening to a symphony that could only ever be played once. It was awe striking. It was profound. To kill someone wasn’t to be powerful, to kill someone was to submit to a power far greater than herself, and maybe it was because she understood that wholeheartedly that she was so damn good at her job.

General Ocampo sat there quietly for a moment, his thick black eyebrows knitting together as if something was troubling him, he exhaled and became slightly more resolute. “This story, the one of you and the hitwoman you like...” He turned and peered at her, eyes narrowed with absolute intrigue. “How does it end?”

Charlotte didn’t have an answer.

 

…

 

When the front door creaked open, when the sound of heels clicked through the marble hallway, she already knew it was her. The hotel suite was silent and in the process of being cleaned with a forensic eye for detail. Charlotte scrubbed the blood spatter off the floor of the bedroom on her hands and knees, teeth gritted and brow sweating, entirely without the time for anymore games.

“Been busy?” Becky leaned her hip against the door frame and folded her arms, smirk widening with abundant amusement.

She looked up from the bedroom floor and moved her hair out of the way. “A dominatrix?” She threw the cloth down in exasperation, looked at the ceiling, at the headboard, then finally at the grinning troublemaker she was actively trying not to kill.

Her hair flowed down her shoulders like liquid copper, shiny, waved, curving its way along the outskirts the black bustier beneath her open beige trenchcoat. She was wearing high-waisted jeans that hugged her hips and tight stomach in the best ways possible, although it was slightly demystifying, Charlotte would have preferred the bustier and nothing else. Becky was however wearing red lipstick and false eyelashes, accoutrements that Charlotte had never seen her dabble with before, and she had no complaints about it.

“Well.” The Irishwoman lifted her brows. “In hindsight, I rather enjoyed that craic at the chop shop… after my burns healed, obviously.” She dusted her fingertips over the chest of drawers and stepped further inside the room on the click of her heels. “You certainly know how to make a girl feel important.” There was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

“Why show up now? You disappear for two months and pop up in the Philippines for what exactly? To steal my job again?” Charlotte chewed.

“How did you kill him?” There was no decisive answer to the question put to her, just a short nod toward the corpse wrapped in bed sheets and linen, her pointer finger suddenly lifting in the air. “Or better yet, did you have fun killing him?” Becky tilted her head to one side.

Charlotte got up off her knees and wiped the skin that was pinkened from the pressure. “He was jacking off with his eyes closed and so I counted down from ten…” Becky’s eyes widened with surprise. “I shot him when I got to two.”

“Cruel.”

“Hilarious.”

“Hilariously cruel.” Becky genuinely giggled and plonked herself down on the chaise lounge. “Swanky room by the way, I see Laszlo likes to keep you sweet.” She nodded in approval.

“I imagine he does. I know where he lives, after all.”

“Do you know where I live?”

“In the worst case scenario of everything I ever do.”

“Well now.” The half empty champagne flute was lifted from the table beside the chaise lounge and examined slightly. “Sounds like that place comes with a hell of a view, I’ll take it.” The troublemaker looked her way with those cold, mischievous, brown eyes.

“The guards outside?”

“Their bodies are playing a very tight game of Twister in the cleaning cupboard.”

“And the senators?” Charlotte was ready to leap for her gun if it wasn’t the right answer.

“Another date, perhaps?” Becky sucked her lips between her teeth for a moment. “I don’t usually play well with others but I thought it might be fun to tag along… I would hate for anything to happen to my beautiful, delicate, fragile, little—”

“I will fist you in the asshole with a knife in my hand.” Charlotte glowered and pulled the hotel robe around herself tighter. “There’s a room service cart in the living room, go and put him in the cleaning cupboard while I get dressed.” She nodded to the corpse and walked to the bathroom.

Lungs pushing, teeth gritted, pulse quickening, she closed the bathroom door and listened to the sound of a woman in the bedroom following orders. Charlotte closed her eyes, and for all her pretense, perhaps this was exactly what she wanted to happen, perhaps everything was going to plan. She had put Becky’s name on the reservation after all… but the trouble was that she absolutely knew Becky was here on other business. People like them, psychopaths, the unafflicted, they didn’t just jump on sixteen hour flights for romps and romances, this was most definitely a business trip.

It was merely a question of what business it was and how it intersected with her own.

 

…

 

The last time Becky had worked with another contractor, well, it ended with one more death than originally anticipated. When she had said she didn’t play well with others, it was absolutely the truth. There was something about this life that was profoundly lonely, and all the more perfect because of that reason. The troublemaker enjoyed her own company. It was a pleasure that was becoming more complicated and conditional on a moment to moment basis, because being here, with her, watching her work the way she worked, it was like seeing in colour for the very first time.

The Irishwoman wasn’t sure she would ever be able to go back to the way things once were.

“Hey, Nicole Kidman…” Charlotte’s voice was detached and cool, her demeanor slightly playful, her hand barely stifling the screaming mouth of the woman squirming and kicking underneath her. “Can you turn that on for me?” She nodded to the curling iron next to the mirror.

“My god, I adore you,” Becky whispered the confession with blinding, confusing, profound honesty. “What setting does her Majesty care for?” She plugged it in and watched through the mirror’s reflection as Mrs Aquina, in her pristine pink skirt suit, her laddered stockings, her red painted nails clawing at the Big One’s biceps, kicked and squealed a little louder.

“Do you think loose wave will do the trick?” Charlotte lifted a museful eyebrow.

“Why take a chance?”

“Pin curl?”

“Much better.” Becky agreed and dialled up the heat. “What are we doing about the old man?” She nodded to the barely breathing body sprawled over the shattered coffee table.

“Do you know much about the Triad?”

“Worked for them once or twice, sure.” Becky nodded.

“Make it look like this came from them.” Charlotte pressed her weight harder on the screaming woman’s mouth. “The evidence in the briefcase will only go so far, I don’t want there to be any doubt about who ordered this…”

For a moment, Becky hung there, contemplating how to make her work as impressive as possible. It was astounding how quickly the urge to please the Queen crept up on her, how deeply she felt the need to be admired for her creativity. She drummed her fingers on the desk and pushed forward, her steps toward the dying man filled with consideration.

None of her considerations were reserved for the dying man, not a single one. She was already quite decided that a carved triangle over his slowing heart would be more than enough to do the trick. As the saying goes, sometimes less really is more.

When she finished the task and looked over her shoulder at Charlotte again, it was in her eyes, the calmness, the languidness, the serenity, as if she were reading poetry, as if the yawping woman with scalded red marks seared into her cheeks was the final page of a book she was utterly engrossed in. Becky would remember the wild one like that forever, she smiled slightly, and her considerations only grew deeper on how exactly to make the real reason she came here fit for a Queen.

When the senator stopped screaming, when a bullet was finally fired between the eyes, the muscular creature stilled and hung there, blood spattered across her face and blonde mane, eyes completely blank, a satisfied smile creeping up her cheeks, and Becky hoped for it to never end. The beasts of Wicklow were alive and well while Charlotte still breathed, and so was the little scrawny girl who cried at the thought of them falling down.

It wasn’t a frightening realisation, not anymore, two months had been spent mulling over the conundrum, and now it was merely a problem that needed solving.

“Charlotte?” Becky cleared her throat.

Two narrowed blue eyes found her, inhuman and predatory, cold and calculating, shining with exhilaration. Charlotte clambered off of the body and stood straight, and she said nothing, just stood there and waited expectantly.

“My god, you’re beautiful.” Becky shook her head slightly, awestruck and unconcerned with hiding the fact. “I think you might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.” It was a confession she needed acknowledging, a truth that needed to be heard.

“I hate how much I don’t hate you.” Charlotte closed her eyes, and her voice rasped in a way that made Becky’s stomach feel ticklish and weak. “This is the most fun I’ve had in…” She opened her eyes again, and she saw a gun barrel staring back at her.

“You don’t look surprised?” Becky whispered.

It made Charlotte laugh. “I’m many things, but surprised isn’t one of them.” She pouted, slightly.

“Disappointed?” Becky became troubled.

That wild woman, that fucking maddening, perfect, wonderful woman, blood spatter still wet on her cheeks, she stood there and smiled with a small shake of her head. “Rebecca Kelly,” she smiled as she said her name. “You could _never_ disappoint me.” Her stare grew in intensity.

Becky nodded and took a small amount of comfort in it.

“You know how the Collective feels about side jobs, Charlotte.” Becky shrugged slightly and pulled the safety off her gun. “They offered me a lot of money…”

“I’m glad it’s you here, you know that right?” Charlotte smiled and looked away for a moment. “I never wanted you to end, not really, I don’t think.”

For the first time in twenty five years, Becky felt tears roll down her cheeks, and god, it was humiliating. The fact Charlotte couldn’t stop staring, shocked and confused, only made it worse.

“Do you think I’m an evil person?” Becky blinked away her tears.

“Yes.” The wild one laughed, and her mouth slackened into a grin. “You’re the biggest cunt I know, I promise.”

“Thank you,” Becky exhaled a relieved, flattered noise. “I needed to hear that, thank you.”

“Do you mind if I have a last scotch before we do this?” Charlotte nodded hopefully at the decanter on the side table. “Now that I’m thinking about it, a cigarette would be good too.” She patted herself down for the gold tin.

“Smoking is terrible for your health,” Becky sighed and rolled her head as the Queen reached for her back pocket. “Honestly, Charlotte, it drastically lowers your life span—” A movement caught her eye, an arm pulling back, and she was on her back a second later, a pain shooting through the middle of her chest.

Becky snapped her eyes open and spluttered, when she looked to the source of the pain, a knife was stuck inside of her to the hilt. She laughed so loud it shook the room, she laughed, and she laughed, and she laughed until the copper penny taste of blood was coating her mouth. A shadow landed over her eyes, and she reached for the gun a few centimetres away, but a foot stepped firmly on her wrist and held it there.

“Hey you, it’s okay,” Charlotte whispered and crouched down, and her long warm fingers brushed the hair out of the troublemaker’s eyes. “It could have been either of us. Today I was the better woman, tomorrow it could have been you.” Her voice was soft and reassuring, tentative and unsure of itself.

Becky nodded and laughed again, blood dribbling over her lips, her chest driving up and plummeting back down against the searing pain of the wedged knife, she nodded to the gun, eyes fluttering.

“I. I. I.” Becky caught a breath and was struggling to find another. “I need you to pick it up.”

“And ruin your pretty face?” Charlotte frowned softly.

Becky weakly smiled at the compliment.

“Well, if you’re sure.” Charlotte picked the gun up without examining it too closely. “I want you to know...” She stopped and sighed. “Well. Maybe some mysteries are worth keeping, right?” Her smile was genuine and sad, simultaneously.

The barrel was pointed and the trigger pulled, and Becky couldn’t help but laugh again, she laughed even though it was noiseless, she laughed even though it was quickening her death, she laughed and she didn’t care that it was absurd. Charlotte looked horrified and confused, her eyes darting between the giggler and the tiny white flag that had erupted out of the end of the pistol.

“Be mine?” Charlotte choked out the words that had been scrawled on the tiny rectangular flag. “Be fucking mine?!” It was growled with disbelief.

“I turned down the job.” Becky swallowed, eyes fluttering. “I. I. I thought.” She lost her nerve as pressure was applied to her wound, Charlotte let go for just a moment to search for something to stem the bleeding. “I thought we could stop trying to kill each other, I wanted to make it official.” She coughed slightly.

“You stupid bitch.” Charlotte hissed and tried her hardest to mitigate the damage. “You stupid, idiotic, crazy fucking bitch—”

“Hey,” Becky whispered, her mouth tasting blood, her tongue impossibly dry. She placed her fingers over the hand applying pressure to her gut. “Would you have said yes?” It was exhaled hopefully.

“No.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not.” Charlotte insisted and became deeply stuck in her thoughts as her shoulders leaned forward to apply more pressure. “I… I like you Becky.” She chewed and exhaled through her nostrils. “I like you and it isn’t easy.”

There was a knock to the door.

“Go.” Becky weakly nodded to the balcony. “Twenty feet, you can ice your sprained ankle when you get somewhere safe.” She pushed a reluctant Charlotte toward the open balcony doors.

“I can’t let them take you alive, Becky, you know too much.” Charlotte became conflicted, her eyes darting between the front door and the dying woman on the floor.

“We both know you won’t kill me.” She managed a tiny last laugh, and her eyes fluttered closed. “Run. You have to run. You run until you’re far away. If I survive this, I suggest you never stop running.”

“I don’t think you’re going to.”

“Then still always lightly jog, because you never know.”

“Becky…”

“Just go,” Becky’s voice became tiny and quiet.

“Alright.” The door banged so loud that it jumped and wobbled in the frame. “If you survive this… come and find me again. You, you come and find me again, Becky Lynch.” That wondrous woman made a break for it.

“Get a jog on, little girl blue.” Becky pursed her lips and smiled.

  


AN: Should Becky live or die? What are your thoughts? Leave me a review if you want another chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  [SONG FOR THE CHAPTER](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=batsEg6kW94)   
> 

It took some bargaining, some desperation on her part that was thinly disguised as a professional interest in making sure there were no loose ends, but Laszlo came through and sent new document papers via the courier. One trip to the market later, and she was officially Lisa Marie Brooke, John Hopkins University alumni, administrator of the international medical volunteer programme, a meek brunette woman in hideous khakis and christian rock apparel, and Charlotte even went so far as to wear a crucifix she pickpocketed from an elderly woman’s neck on route to the hospital. To her surprise, she didn’t catch aflame.

“Name?” The nurse behind the desk didn’t look up from her computer screen.

Charlotte pushed her authorisation badge over the counter, and the badge was nothing more than fake membership card for the travelling sisterhood of Jesus that she had swiped from a missionary’s key ring on the way here, but she was fairly certain the nurse was too used to westerners coming and going to bother checking.

“Lisa Brooke,” Charlotte cleared her throat and put it back in her pocket. “I’m with the medical missionary programme out of Hopkins, we got a phone call this morning that a western woman was brought in without papers or identification. A possible robbery gone wrong? One of our students has been missing since last night.” She pushed a curt smile. “Just here to double check it isn’t her.”

“Do you have a missing persons report for your student?” The nurse leaned back in her seat. “I can take it and run a check.”

“She’s only been missing since last night.” Lisa Brooke was a very concerned and decent Christian woman, Charlotte decided. “I know what you’re thinking, and sure, she might have just stayed out all night, we are in an exciting foreign country after all but... Rebecca would never miss morning prayer circle.” She gravely shook her head.

“Without a police report—”

“Do you have a daughter?” Charlotte interrupted with a hard swallow. The nurse paused and blinked, clearly thinking about someone dear to her. “I know this isn’t protocol but… I really need to check and make sure she’s not here. Can you just look up your admissions and see if a caucasian woman came in last night without papers? Her parents… they’re worried to death.”

“Do you have a picture of your student?” The nurse waned.

“Shoot!” Charlotte slapped the counter and stared at the ceiling in disbelief. “I… I don’t… but I can tell you that she has ginger hair and brown eyes? And the last time we saw her she was wearing a beige coat? Does that help?”

The nurse nodded and rose from her seat with a kind smile. “Let me see what I can do, when people come in without identification we take photographs for the police to use. I’ll see if I can find the prints from admissions last night.”

“You’re a good person,” Charlotte sighed and scratched her wig. “Thank you.”

 

…

 

There were tubes coming from the troublemaker. Her eyes were half closed, the same as her lips, which were cradling yet more disconnected tubes that had been taped in place over her cheeks. The troublemaker was no longer a troublemaker, she was a vessel, an empty shell, a bandaged broken little thing that simply couldn’t be resuscitated.

Charlotte stared at the photograph in the front page of the file and felt things she had never felt before, she felt her heart clench and refuse reality, she felt her chest blindly refuse to move, as if there were a deep gash in the bottom, as if she had no need for air. On the outside, she remained indifferent and collected, thoughtful but personally untouched by the death.

Charlotte thumbed the file over and ran her pointer finger along the keywords, who the paramedics were on scene, who the on-call doctor was last night, which nurses administered what drugs, who attempted resuscitation, who announced the time of death.

The nurse cleared her throat and gently prised the file out of her hands, and for a second she said nothing, she just set a hand on the grieving woman’s thigh.

“That’s not my girl,” Charlotte reassured in order to save face, her expression slightly remorseful. “That poor woman. I’m just… so sad but relieved that it’s not Rebecca.” The nod was decisive on the matter.

“Are you sure this woman isn’t who you’re looking for?” The nurse lifted a brow.

“Positive.” Charlotte nodded again and maintained the facade. “Why do you ask?”

“The circumstances of her death were confusing. I’m sure you’ve heard the news, three government officials were killed in a gangland attack last night… unfortunately she was caught in the chaos. The police have a lot of questions.” Her expression was a severe one.

“I wish I could help,” Charlotte lied and brushed her knees, standing out of the plastic waiting room chair with a resolute look on her face. “Maybe if I could see her…” She needed to see the body, she needed to know for certain that the troublemaker was gone. “Well, I’m certain it isn’t Rebecca. I just feel as though I should pray for the girl.” She scratched her head and pulled the excuse out of her ass.

“Not possible, she was taken to the mortuary this morning. You can file a request with the coroner but unless you can positively identify her, well, it’s a police matter.” The nurse smiled curtly. “I hope you find your friend, Ms Brooke.”

“Thanks,” Charlotte whispered.

 

…

 

“Queen? Where the fuck are you?” Laszlo was infuriated, exasperated, relieved that Charlotte had finally answered the phone but barely containing the rage that a month had past without contact. “Tell me they didn’t catch up to you?!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. I’m just laying low,” Charlotte mumbled and rubbed her headache.

“I can fucking see that!” Laszlo burst. “What would possess you.” He stopped abruptly, and Charlotte could tell he was pinching his nose. “Why did Becky show up?”

“I ask myself the same question, often.”

“You didn’t know?”

“She showed up, she died because of it. I tied up the loose ends and got the hell out of there. From the looks of things the Filipinos have put it to bed as a bad business deal with the Chinese cartels. You got what you wanted… I’m sorry it wasn’t cleaner.” Charlotte peered out to the rolling hills and green fields beyond the kitchen window, completely unsure of herself anymore. “Take twenty percent off my fee for the trouble. I’ll call you when I’m back in the neighbourhood—”

“When are you coming home?”

“What is it to you?”

“I’ve lost one of my girls!” Laszlo hissed and paused, and after a second there was a remorseful sigh. “She was very good at her job, and she made me laugh. I’m sad that she is dead and I want you close by so I can keep an eye on you.”

“Fuck off, Laszlo.” Charlotte scoffed and wanted to hang up the phone, though she hung on to her last nerve and brought it back up to her ear to finish her point. “Becky was a clinical psychopath, she would have killed you the second somebody paid for the hit.”

“But she never pretended otherwise, and she never asked me to believe otherwise,” Laszlo said it as if it truly meant something more than he could put into words. “She was naughty, like a little girl, but she always made me laugh when she came over for dinner. You are always naughty too… but with her it was different… she was… Becky.” He sighed, sadly.

“Becky used to visit you for dinner?” Charlotte didn’t believe it.

“Sometimes breakfast, a few times yes, but she never called ahead.”

“Why did she visit?”

“I never asked, I just fed.”

“Okay. I’ll drop by when I’m home.”

“I’m not going to take the twenty percent off the top,” Laszlo reassured. “Call me when you’re ready to work. We’ll figure something out.”

“Thanks,” Charlotte said and hung up the phone.

The kitchen became silent once more, save for the sound of freshly boiled tea steeping and steaming inside the carefully laid out tea cups on the tiled countertop. Unable to wait any longer, Charlotte went off in search of the reason she had came here. It was becoming slightly unnerving how long the occupier had been in the bathroom for.

The living room was ancient and pristine, the walls decorated with catholic pictures, a papal hall of fame, a carefully dusted collection of saints in their wooden frames watching over her with their beady painted eyes. The television was set to mute, but it caught Charlotte’s eye nonetheless, somebody had gone to the trouble of placing white lace doilies on top of the box, and for a moment, the thought of a rambunctious little troublemaker fiddling and making a mess of this neatly cluttered home earned a small smile.

“Ah,” Mrs Kelly cleared her throat and appeared at the top of the carpeted stairs. “Sorry my girl, I wasn’t expecting company.” The rouge and lipstick became more evident as she walked down the steps in to the light.

“You don’t get many visitors?” Charlotte tried to be pleasant and cordial, human and interested. She tucked her hands inside her back pockets and rocked slightly on her feet.

“I don’t.” Mrs Kelly stopped and put her hand on the bannister, peering Charlotte up and down. “How do you know my daughter again?”

“I don’t, not really.” Charlotte shrugged and kept it simple. “I’m a private investigator, somebody paid me to find you because they wanted you to know what happened to your daughter.” The last part wasn’t a total lie; on some level Charlotte did want Mrs Kelly to know the truth, and on some level she wanted to be here so she could learn more of it herself.

“Well if you did your research you would know my daughter is a difficult pill to swallow. The others, well, they have never forgave her, I don’t think I’ll ever find it in myself either.” Mrs Kelly sat herself down in the armchair. “We’re a very small community up here.”

“I know she was a talented police officer.” Charlotte was full of forced compliments as she pushed back her long blonde hair. “Talented police officers tend to cause waves… but you must have been proud, at times?”

“My dear.” Mrs Kelly leaned forward. “Proud is not the first word that comes to mind when I think of my daughter. Now, I was kind enough to let you in so do me a courtesy and let’s just get this over and done without too much fuss, how did she die?”

“Excuse me?” Charlotte snapped her eyes open at the frankness of the statement.

“That’s what you’re here to tell me, isn’t it? My daughter was constantly looking for trouble, and trouble was bound to come looking for her sooner rather than later.”

“It was a mugging gone wrong.” Charlotte quietly cleared her throat.

“Mugging people was she?” Mrs Kelly rolled her eyes, not doubting it for a second. “Just as well the chap stood his ground and put her down for good, someone was bound to sooner rather than later.”

“Oh, no, Mrs Kelly,” Charlotte clarified quietly, and although she was amused she appeared utterly somber. “A woman was being mugged and she jumped in to help, or at least she tried to, it was tragic, undeserved. When nobody came forward to identify her body the woman paid me to find you—”

“Do you think I came down in the last shower?” Mrs Kelly interrupted with a stern, unnerving look. There was a movement, a glint of metal that caught the light from the lamp, and before Charlotte knew it the mother had produced a small hand pistol from behind her cardigan. “You’re one of her kind… I can bloody smell it on you.” Her nose wrinkled with disgust. “Now I don’t know what trouble she got herself into this time but if you think you’ve came all the way here to finish off her family you have another bloody thing coming, and I can promise you, John Paul as my witness.” Mrs Kelly nodded to her favourite pope on the wall. “She wouldn’t have gave a feck for more than a day even if you did.”

Charlotte dropped her emotional mask and raised her hands, the expressions melted from her face until there was nothing but a faint unemotive scowl.

“There it is.” Mrs Kelly nodded knowingly and maintained her weapon. “Bloody afflicted, the lot of you.”

“I’m not here to kill you,” Charlotte sighed, unphased, rolling her eyes and unafraid. “Do you think I would have took the chance and let you go upstairs for your gun if I was trying to hurt you?”

“Aye, but you thought I was using the lavatory.” Mrs Kelly pointed her finger as if she had outsmarted the hitwoman who came to pay her a visit.

“And you think if I came all this way to kill you… what exactly? I would let you go and take one last shit for good time’s sake?” Charlotte screwed her face with disbelief.

“The mouth on you!” Mrs Kelly scalded disapprovingly.

“Welp your daughter is dead and I just wanted to make sure you knew. There, satisfied?” Charlotte glared and blinked out her frustrations, half tempted to kill the woman and half certain Becky wouldn’t mind in the slightest.

“So you did know Becky then?”

“Yes.” Charlotte folded her arms like a scolded child. “I would tell you she loved you but apparently you’re above that. I was trying to do a nice thing, if I knew you were going to be like this I would have just sent a text message.”

Mrs Kelly paused and chewed the inside of her mouth, and for a moment she was stuck in thought, stuck in her feelings regardless of how much she wished she didn’t have them, the gun inside her fist squeezed just a bit tighter because of it. There it was, Charlotte realised. The grief. The tiny bit of it that couldn’t be denied or turned away.

“Her body?” Mrs Kelly cleared her throat and looked at Charlotte expectantly.

“In a freezer somewhere.” Charlotte shrugged. “If you don’t want to go the same way she did I suggest you don’t go looking for it.”

“Aye,” Mrs Kelly whispered, and her eyes drifted briefly to a photo on the coffee table. There was a weighty, saddened sigh. “I suppose that’s where she will stay then.”

Charlotte turned to look at the photo, and she saw a little girl no older than seven in the picture frame, laughing, living, her bright eyes glimmering mischievously, ginger hair caught in the wind. It was a face she would know regardless of age or lack thereof. And again, Charlotte felt things, shallow emotions that were tentative and strange in their newness, a sadness that wasn’t quite fleshed out but made her knit her together regardless.

“She looks happy there,” Charlotte mumbled and couldn’t quite wrap her mind around the idea of the troublemaker before her prime killing years. “You should try and remember her like that, if it helps.”

“You should leave.” Mrs Kelly stood up and gestured the barrel of her pistol towards the back door. “Before I change my mind.”

“Can I ask you a question before I do?” It was a stupid one, a question that might not have a tangible answer, but it rattled around the back of Charlotte’s mind during the sleepless hours of night regardless. Charlotte knew damn well the thing that Becky died for in the end, but the question of what it was she lived for was one that remained unanswered, and the thought of it being as simple as killing for the sake of killing just didn’t seem to fit anymore.

“One, and then I want you to leave.”

Before Charlotte could open her mouth to ask, the back door opened and closed, and the sound of little feet wiping and scuffing their shoes had Mrs Kelly wide eyed and startled. The gun was tucked under her armpit suddenly, and the Queen watched as a little girl no older than seven skipped through the kitchen door.

“Gran? Ah! There ye are! I left me P.E kit and Mrs Flanagan threw a fit.” The little girl rolled her eyes and caught sight of the stranger in the living room with her grandmother, she grew quiet and pursed her lips for a second. “Hello.” She smiled.

Of all the things that could have been anticipated, that could have been logically or even absurdly considered, the existence of this little girl was not on the list. It wasn’t even on the first draft of things Charlotte had put together twelve months ago. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t conceivable. But, there she was with those big brown mischievous eyes, too much like her mother to be anybody else’s child.

“Hello,” Charlotte whispered, absolutely awestruck, and she crouched until they were near enough eye-level. She looked at the little girl as if she were a miracle, or maybe a clue, perhaps even both, and there again was those pesky feelings; the Queen felt her heartstrings pull towards the tiny vestibule of the troublemaker as if she might be able to help make sense of her problems. “What’s your name, kiddo?” Charlotte asked dumbly.

The grandmother became flustered. “Aoife get your P.E kit and hurry back to school!” Mrs Kelly blurted and nodded to the stairs. “Now, please.”

“Aoife,” Charlotte whispered and sounded it out. “That’s a pretty name.”

“My mammy gave it to me,” Aoife grinned and tucked her hands behind her back, twirling side to side slightly, abundantly chirpy and equally as enthralled with Charlotte as Charlotte was with her. “Do you know me mam?” Her brow furrowed together curiously.

“I met her a few times, she’s a nice lady.” Charlotte exhaled and felt her throat hurt.

It wasn’t that Becky was dead, it wasn’t that she was stuck in her own grief over the fact, it was entirely worse than that, it was the weight of regret that she had taken this little girl’s mother and made an orphan of her in the process. When she pinned it down, when she understood the enormous realisation, Charlotte felt like she couldn’t breathe, apparently emotions were not a thing solely reserved for the troublemaker, apparently they were more complicated than that. Externally, she remained a force of calm. Externally, the wars being fought within herself were not given a single inch beyond the small twitch of her eye.

“Granny! Can we show her a picture of Mammy and me? I like the one from when she took me hunting on Wicklow—”

“When she bloody kidnapped you, you mean!” Mrs Kelly became exasperated, but the little girl just giggled and giggled, as if it were the funniest thing in the world, as if there wasn’t anybody she was more proud of, anybody she loved more on this earth, than her sometimes mother.

“Me mammy is a ninja.” The little girl looked at Charlotte quite seriously. “She says it’s no business for wains so I have to stay here with me gran.”

“Does she come to see you a lot?” Charlotte didn’t want an answer, but she felt as though she should ask.

“Yep.” Aoife nodded proudly.

“No.” Mrs Kelly interjected. “Becky comes and goes as and when it pleases her, she’s came to see the girl no more than the fingers on my right hand since she brought her into this world!”

“Because she’s a bloody ninja, Gran!” Aoife protested.

“Say the word bloody one more time and your feet will not touch the ground.” Mrs Kelly made a quiet girl out of her youngest. “Get your P.E kit and hurry yourself back to school or you can forget the pavlova I got for after tea tonight, young lady.”

The little girl darted off and Charlotte couldn’t put a single one of her thoughts on the end of her tongue. She was dumbfounded, she was stalled like a deer in headlights, and none of this made sense, the more she thought about it the more overwhelming it all became.

The gun was produced and pointed once again.

“Out!” Mrs Kelly hissed.

“Becky loved her?” Charlotte turned around, needing her suspicions confirmed.

“No,” Mrs Kelly scoffed as if it was the silliest thing she ever heard. “Becky loved having someone who adored and worshipped her, she would pick that little girl up and drop her down like a hot coal the minute she got her fix. The only person Becky has ever loved is her bloody self! Now go on, be on your way!”

Charlotte left with one question answered and at least two dozen more than she arrived with, and her walk down the footpath was a slow one, contemplative, sorrowful, furious, a mixture of emotions that she didn’t have words for, but by god did they hurt.

She stopped and closed her eyes when the pitter patter of hurried footsteps chased after her.

“Hold on wouldya big girl! My legs are only little!” The little irishwoman raced up beside her, out of breath and grinning ear to ear. “Will you walk me to school?” She adjusted the P.E kit on her shoulder.

“I don’t think your grandma would like that, Aoife.”

“I asked, she said it’s alright.” Charlotte instantly grinned at the lie.

“Well if we’re going to the same way what harm could it do?” They walked slowly down the road, and Charlotte dug her hands in her pockets, happy and simultaneously aware it was the wrong emotion considering she was the one who put the knife in the little one’s mother.

“Is me mammy coming home soon?” Aoife asked it out of nowhere.

“Nope.” Charlotte didn’t pull any punches as they continued their slow pace down the path.

“How do you know?” Aoife narrowed her brown eyes.

“Well if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“Rude of you!” The phrase made Charlotte snap her eyes to the little girl in surprise. “Anyway, are you a ninja like Mammy? You must be. You got a funny voice, like the people in Friends and How I Met Your Mother, which means you’re not from round here, so she probably told you where to find me.” The little girl produced a fairly intelligent, hopeful, and yet unfortunately wrong answer, skipping beside the contract killer walking her to school.

Charlotte deeply inhaled and squatted so they were closer to eye-level, she stared at the little girl, full of hope, full of abundant chirpiness, cheekiness, all the things Charlotte loved about her mother, and she didn’t know how to say it, but she felt like she should.

“Aoife,” she cleared her throat. “You’re a very smart little girl, I can already tell, and I want you to know that when you grow up, you’re going to realise your mother was a terrible, awful, dog-shit person, and it will feel like the person she hurt the most in this world was you. When that day comes, I want you to know that if there was one thing I knew about your mother—now, in hindsight—it was that she protected the secret of you with her entire life, and so if ever there was a tiny little bit of her that was ever good, she saved all of it for you.” Charlotte became deadly serious.

“You’re talking out ye arse, big girl,” Aoife scoffed and giggled at the woman twice her size, with still a few centimetres to spare. The little troublemaker refused to believe Becky was anything but brilliant. “Do you have any kids?” She asked and started walking again.

Charlotte stiffened slightly. “No,” she responded.

“You’d be a good mammy, big girl, just like my mammy.”

“Can you stop calling me that?”

“What should I call you then?”

“Charlotte. Just, call me Charlotte.” Charlotte pinched the top of her nose.

“Alright, big girl, Charlotte it is then.” The little one bounced along. “So where do you think me mammy is?”

Charlotte exhaled for what felt like the longest time, and she knew, wholeheartedly, that this was only the beginning of her problems. For whatever reason Aoife adored the absent excuse of a mother who barely came around to see her, couldn’t even begin to fathom the idea of putting her down, and perhaps they shared that much in common, but the issue was that one day Aoife would grow up and become all the more desperate for an answer, and if she was half as smart as Charlotte anticipated she would grow up to be, then Aoife would figure out well and good what exactly happened, or at the very least she would have an inkling of who was responsible, and Charlotte wasn’t so sure she wanted a woman in her prime coming after her with a vengeance to cut short her retirement years.

The sensible, logical, _rational_ thing to do, would be to push Aoife in front of a passing car and make it look like an accident; and she did consider it for a moment, but, apparently Charlotte wasn’t feeling sensible or logical. Instead, she stopped and crouched down again, sighing to herself, her hand searching for the pen and paper in her pocket.

“Aoife,” Charlotte cleared her throat and started to jot something down. “I’m going to give you something very important, it’s something I never even gave your mother.” She pushed out the piece of paper and watched the little girl stick it in her pocket. “You have to keep it safe, promise me?”

“I promise,” Aoife chirped. “What is it?”

“My name, my real one I mean, and my private telephone number too.” Charlotte lifted her finger to illustrate how serious she was. “It’s for emergencies only, okay? But one day when you’re older, if you have questions or you feel like you have a score to settle, you come and find me.”

“But I have questions now?”

“Kid, you and me both.”

 

…

 

Another two months passed, and four months wasn’t enough time for the heat of two senators and a military general being executed in their hotel suites to die down, but the Lord’s work knows no bounds on the splendor of his earth, and so Lisa Marie Brooke got on the plane and found herself in Manilla once again in search of answers.

Nobody asked questions about the kind Christian missionary drifting from one room to the next with her bible and crucifix in hand. The rooms along the hallway of the unit were filled with those in the worst shape possible, worst wounds, weakest hearts, all of them trudging slowly through the last days. Lisa Brooke didn’t take a break, and the pious woman who comforted those near the end was whispered about throughout the nursing station all day.

When the code alarm rang, the nurses paged the doctors and darted into the hospital room to begin working on the patient. He was an elderly man who came in a week ago with complications from a stroke, not breathing, still, quiet, and perhaps with more than a slim chance of resuscitation thanks to the alarm being raised so quickly, what a stroke of luck that lovely Lisa was at his bedside when he coded, what a small miracle that she was able to raise the alarm so quickly.

After the patient was stabilised, the youngest nurse slipped out of the room in search of a lunch break.

“Hey!” She caught sight of the missionary behind the desk of the nursing station. “Miss Lisa, no visitors are allowed behind there!”

“Oh goodness!” Lisa chuckled and pushed her glasses up her nose, her eyes darting between the computer and the trainee nurse. “How silly of me, I was just checking the time... I wouldn’t want to be late for evening prayer circle.” She smiled softly and made her way back around the counter.

“Of course.” The young nurse felt rude for being so abrupt with the kind woman. “Thank you for your work today, you’ve brought such peace to the patients…” She shook her head, slightly embarrassed for being so quick to chastise the volunteer who had saved a life. “It’s so lucky you were there when Mr Mendoza became unwell.” She nodded back to the room where medical professionals were now dribbling back out, the patient breathing once again.

“Not luck.” Lisa leaned forward with cool wide eyes, and the young nurse felt a shiver run up her spine. “A god sent miracle.”

“Mhm.” The young nurse chuckled. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Lisa.”

“See you tomorrow.” Lisa smiled back and made her way down the hallway.

The young nurse thought no more of it. She padded to the back of the office to the small refrigerator for her sandwich and apple. There was no such thing as a real lunch break in this place, always something that needed to be done, always paperwork that was waiting to be sent. She sat herself down at the front desk and glanced at the computer screen.

How strange.

The hospital portal where employee records could be accessed was open on the screen. The most recent search was for Thomas Cruz, a paramedic. He looked handsome in his picture, and his home address had been clicked on and brought forward next to his picture. The young nurse smiled to herself and shook her head, exiting the system and pulling up her administration work.

One of the other nurses must have a crush, she thought to herself.

 

…

 

Ideally, she would have used zip ties or rope to restrain the off-duty paramedic, but unfortunately, Lisa Marie Brooke always travelled light on weapons and restraints when carrying out the Lord’s mission. The I.V tubing swiped from supply cupboard back at the hospital was holding up nicely around his straining wrists and ankles, and given that the thin rubber tubing was unlikely to leave any bruising, she couldn’t help but wonder if she had just stumbled across quite the helpful life hack.

“Please.” Thomas whimpered and swallowed so hard that his adam’s apple rocked forward from his throat. “I have a family… I have a wife…”

Charlotte rolled her eyes and slapped the bound man across the face for being so cheeky.

“Your emergency contact is your mother who lives forty miles away.” She sat on the coffee table and admired her handiwork. “You could have said you had… I don’t know… maybe a dog or something?” Charlotte thought about a more concrete alibi. “I mean, I would have had to cut you loose and forget all about this if you had a dog.” She gawked as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“I do have a dog.” He perked up and nodded to the water bowl by the door.

“I’m totally kidding, I’m not going to cut you loose.” Charlotte patted his leg. “But I would like to meet him when I’m done here, maybe scratch his belly, we’ll see what the afternoon brings.”

“Look lady, I don’t have any money.” Thomas wept.

“Good, I don’t want money.” She shrugged and clasped her hands.

“I don’t know any bad people… I…” He shivered and began to sweat profusely as the air-filled syringe was produced from her purse. “I don’t know anyone who would want to do this to me…”

“I know,” Charlotte sighed and scratched the wig glue off the side of her temples. “Trust me, I’m really not looking to drag this out any longer than necessary, Manilla is very humid this time of year and it’s not good for my hair but a friend of mine who was very good at not dying, well, she went and died. I need to know what happened.” She sighed and pouted. “You responded to a female stab victim at the Empress Hotel four months ago. The night the two senators were killed, tell me everything you remember before you handed her over to the hospital and I might let you live.”

“I don’t know anything!” He gasped as the syringe was plunged into the center of his chest.

“It’s funny,” Charlotte chuckled and met his frightened eyes. “Your friend Domingo said the same thing, that she didn’t say anything, do anything, that he could barely remember what happened.” She sighed and got the suspicion that the police had made sure people knew to keep quiet if anybody came around asking questions. “Now would probably be a good time to mention that Domingo is dead by the way. Pulmonary embolism, and you’re about to go the same way if you don’t start talking…”

“Well what is it you want to know?!”

“Anything you might think is pretty fucking impertinent, Thomas.” Charlotte gritted her teeth and pressed the syringe deeper into his chest cavity.

“The police were talking when we loaded her up!” He gasped. “They, they were saying she had answers, that she couldn’t die, that arrangements were being made—”

“Did she say anything to you?” Charlotte became suddenly hopeful that the idiot might be alive. “Think, think very fucking hard!”

“Just one, before we sedated her in the ambulance, she was very insistent.” The paramedic closed his eyes. “It was a name, she kept shouting it.”

“What name?”

The paramedic opened his eyes and looked at the thumb hovering over the plunger on the air-filled syringe. He swallowed and peered back up at Charlotte, exhaling deeply, aware that whatever happened he was going to be in deep shit now.

“Mr. Rabbit.” The name made the Queen freeze.

Charlotte injected the air-filled syringe and got up calmly, reinvigorated with purpose as the warm body slumped forward off the sofa. If Becky was alive, somebody had gone to a lot of trouble to make it look as if she were dead, probably so whoever came looking for her would write it off as collateral damage. They just never anticipated the one thing Becky did before they sedated her, that the person who would come looking was the one woman who had nothing else to lose.

“I’m coming, Becky,” Charlotte whispered and grabbed her coat.

 

…

 

The hills and fields were full of mysteries and fairytales, for a little girl like her at least. It was how Aoife spent her afternoons after school, because of who her mother was and the terrible awful thing she did, it meant the other children weren’t allowed to play with her, and so she became content in solitude, content because she had to be, and the land was regularly wandered in search of adventures instead. At the end of the family property, where the land met the edge of the river, there was a small delipidated stone building, an old chicken coop that once belonged to her great-grandfather. Mammy once told her it was a fortress for ninja training, a place to think, but most importantly, to hide things.

The piece of paper that the big girl had given her was hidden with the rest of her mostest importantest things inside the coop, like the bank book, which Mammy said she wasn’t allowed to touch until she turned sixteen or unless she did something really bad and needed to pay a policeman to get off the hook. That was the rule and Aoife stuck to it, she wasn’t very good at following rules but when Mammy said to do something she always did her best, and so the bank book, the piece of paper from big girl, and the two holographic Pokemon cards she stole from mouthy Karen at school, they were kept in the lock box in the back of the hutch and checked up on regularly.

Aoife dragged her stick against the bark of the trees and skipped the rest of the way toward the broken wooden door that hung off the stone frame to complete her daily audit of her most special possessions.

“Goodness!” A gruff, tired voice gasped as a crack of light hit her bleary eyes. “The skin and bone on you girl, has that woman not been feeding you? And the state of your school shoes.” Mammy pinched the bridge of her nose, exasperated. “All black they’re supposed to be, not caked to the high heavens in shite! If  you ever go to a funeral they’ll be saying, ‘Aye there goes our Rebecca’s girl! The one in the shite scuffed shoes!’ I hope you know this comes back on me?” She peered down the end of her nose seriously.

“Hi Mammy, what’s the craic?” Aoife giggled.

She was tiny and frail, and it didn’t go amiss upon Aoife, the way her muscular arms now looked thin and spindly like twigs, the way her rosy cheeks were sunken in, her eyes dark and bruised too. She had no shoes either, her feet were bleeding and cracked as if she had walked a fair distance. Aoife didn’t care though, Mammy had come to see her, and that was the only thing that mattered.

“Come, come here,” Mammy ordered and beckoned with her hand. “You’ll sit down and have something to eat.” She turned and winced with soreness.

“Honestly, Mammy, I’m grand—”

“I’ve a Greggs sausage roll and a meringue cake in the Tesco bag, fetch it for me would you love?” Mammy nodded to the plastic bag. “Oh! And a drop of Lucozade in there too, only the best for the athlete.” She winked.

“Mammy where you been?” Aoife looked at her with a craned eyebrow and sat down with the half-eaten sausage roll. “You look like you fell off a bus.”

“Aye, well, I fell off a cargo ship in Dublin, but that was after the real craic.” Mammy lifted her finger and grinned. “Guess how many blokes I killed this time?”

“A hundred and ninety two,” Aoife didn’t skip a beat between mouthfuls of sausage roll.

“Nah, try again.”

“Four hundred thousand two million nine thousand fifty-five.”

“Nah, again.”

“Two.”

“None.” Mammy pushed forward with a serious look in her eyes. “They kept me locked up in a cage for four months, tortured me half to death, never offered me a cup of tea once the savages, and can you believe the eejits didn’t notice when I swiped the keys?” She jangled the set of cumbersome keys in her hand. “Here, quick, put these in your hidey-hole, I want you to have them as a keepsake. It was a close call this time.”

“Aye,” Aoife sighed and examined the keys. “Big girl said you weren’t coming back, Mammy.”

“Big girl?” Mammy snapped her eyes open.

“Aye, Mammy, she said you were a bad, bad, bad, super bad person, and that I shouldn’t be mad about it.” Aoife sat up a little straighter as she peered at her mother, and she giggled, she giggled and giggled, giggled as if it were the funniest thing in the world, giggled until Mammy was giggling too with her beaming white teeth on show. “I still love you, Mammy, even if you are bad.”

“Thanks.” Mammy grinned and ruffled her hair.

It was the god’s honest truth, the entirety of the wisdom she had managed to accrue in seven years of living, of course her mammy was a bad person, but she loved her anyway, loved her because she never tried to pretend otherwise, loved her even though she was only really a mammy in name, not action, and that was alright too, Gran was good at being a mammy for the most part. Mammy was good at other stuff, like hunting, and being fun, and making her laugh, and they were all important things too.

“So why did you come to see me, Mammy?” Aoife pushed forward and tucked herself under a sore bruised armpit until they were sat neatly side by side, little and large. “Did you miss me, Mammy?” She peered up at her.

“What do I always tell you?”

“That when God made you he forgot to give you the thing that makes people love other people, but that I make you laugh so you like coming to see me.” Aoife reeled it off perfectly. “Did God make sure to double-check when he made me, Mammy?” She became concerned.

“He did,” Mammy agreed and slumped her arm over the little one’s shoulder. “He gave you all of the love he forgot to give me, so you’ve got twice as much in your heart.”

“Is big girl bad like you, Mammy?”

“Eh, she tries to be.” Mammy shrugged and closed her eyes. “She came then, did she?”

“Aye Mammy.” Aoife nodded. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“Yep,” Mammy replied instantly. “We fight a lot, it’s nice.”

“We should probably bell her then, Mammy.”

“She changes her number a lot. I think I need to stay here for a week or so before I go looking for her, get a bit of weight on me.” Mammy patted her skinny tummy.

“She gave me her phone number for emergencies?”

“She gave you what now?”

 

…

 

It took a week but Charlotte narrowed down the precincts until she was stood outside the building where Becky was either still being tortured and interrogated, or where she had finally been murdered, and the distinction between the two possibilities didn’t feel like a big one. Either way, somebody had taken the person that she had decided, without realising, tangibly belonged to her, and because of that retribution would be made without discrimination.

The plan was a simple one, simple and yet quite possibly the stupidest thing she had or will ever do, stupid enough to make the troublemaker proud, no doubt. Charlotte had figured out that the question of how to break into the site was a moot one, especially when she could simply stroll right through the doors and exacerbate the process by admitting to her involvement of the murders. They would beat and torture her in search of who orchestrated the hit, sure enough, but they would also more than likely imprison in the same cell as Becky in the hopes of catching them talking about something incriminating on tape, well, if Becky was still alive, of course.

She wasn’t sure yet on how exactly they would break out of the site, but she was certain that they would either succeed or go down fighting, and maybe that would be a hell of a way to go. The old snitch wasn’t wrong all of those years ago, this career really didn’t come with any sort of longevity… but if falling down in a hail of bullets with her troublemaker and taking a few police officers with them for good measure was how she was supposed to leave this world, then that was alright too. It wasn’t dying in the cold lonely night taking world altering secrets to her grave, but it was an answer to the biggest question of all, what does a psychopath care about if not herself?

Charlotte straightened herself and walked up the steps towards the door of the precinct.

“Hello,” she cleared her throat and spoke to the officer behind the intake desk typing away on his computer. “I need you to go and get your commanding officer, right now—”

“Take a seat.” He pointed to the waiting area.

Charlotte halted and looked over to the empty seats, blinking and offended that this was going to plan the way she had anticipated, and on top of all of that, her phone was ringing in her back pocket which was an irritating distraction. “There is nobody else here?” She looked at him in disbelief. “Trust me, you’re _really_ going to want to go and get your commanding officer—”

“Ma’am.” He stared intensely, displeased and authoritative. “Go and take a seat.”

“Well alright,” Charlotte huffed petulantly.

When she looked at her phone, much to her surprise, the call was directed to her personal phone number. There were only two people in the world who had that phone number, and from the area code attached to the beginning of the digits, she was certain that Becky’s daughter was interrupting the one half-decent thing she would ever do in her life with something unimportant and stupid.

She put the phone back in her pocket and tucked one of her knees over the other, sighing and staring straight ahead to the ticking clock on the wall. Two minutes passed, and the phone rang again. Charlotte rolled her eyes and let it ring out. A few more minutes passed, and the phone rang again.

“Are you going to answer that?” The police officer at the desk pointed at her, growing all the more irritated. “Please, it’s very annoying!” He stood up and walked to the back office.

Charlotte grumbled under her breath and picked up the phone.

“This better be damn important—”

“Mammy’s back,” Aoife chirped.

Charlotte grew wide-eyed. Her body stalled and stilled, her chest refusing to move, her knuckles growing white around the armrest of the waiting room chair, the waiting room of the police precinct a hemisphere away that the troublemaker had apparently broken free from without bothering to call and mention it.

“Here,” Aoife sighed. “Mammy wants to speak to you.”

“Al… alright.”

“Hello?” Becky sounded tired and raspy.

“I thought you were dead,” Charlotte exhaled quietly, and it was a grief she needed to get off her chest, an interim of emotion between then and now that needed to be made right. “You didn’t think to fucking mention—”

“Where are you?”

“Manilla!”

“Four months. They nursed me back to health and then they tortured me for four months, ripped me nails out of my fingers, put electric cables up my arse, slapped me about silly, and I still got out of Manilla quicker than you did?” Becky sounded pleased with herself. “You big lump.”

“I came back to rescue you!” Charlotte hissed under her breath. “I’m at the… well. I’m at the place I thought you were being kept.”

“Fair fucks, but do you know when I needed rescuing, Charlotte?” Becky held for a dramatic pause. “About four fucking months ago.”

“Well I got your Mr. Rabbit message a little late but that’s by the by now.” Charlotte pinched the bridge of her nose. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? How did you get home?”

“I’m busted up pretty good, also, the prisoner of political dissent diet does _wonders_ for a girl’s figure by the way… it took me a few weeks to get home, stowed away on a cargo ship to the Suez canal, then doubled back on myself to Germany, after that I was cooking on gas, just jumped on a postal ship for Dublin and here I am. By the way, your real name is Patricia?” She could tell Becky was knitting her brow together. “I’m never having sex with you again.”

“I’m going to finish the job next time.” Charlotte bit her bottom lip so hard that blood was drawn to the surface.

“Patty, whatever you say—”

“I will never forgive you.”

“Patricia—”

“Stop it!” Charlotte barked in embarrassment. “Charlotte is my middle name, so stop it,” she whispered.

“If I were you I would get out of there. I didn’t tell them anything but if they figure out who you are, well, there will be no slipping out the back door for you and I would hate for you to know the pleasure of jump cable on your perineum without me there to cheer you on, lovely Patricia—”

“Ma’am?” A deep voice spoke up and a large shadow loomed over her. “I understand you asked for me specifically?”

Charlotte hung up the call and felt a bead of sweat form on the top of her brow.

“Hello!” She chirped with a sweet, southern accent and closed her eyes. A second passed and she gathered herself, opening her eyes to face the giant of a man who would be the end of her if he caught a whiff of the truth. “My name is Lisa Marie Brooke, I’m with the Travelling Christian Sisters of our Lord Jesus Christ ministry… and I’m here to report two young boys who were vandalising the mission quarters with graffiti. Now, I know you’re a busy man, Mr Commander, but I was hoping you could get right on it—”

The commander raised his hand and looked to the intake officer who stood at his side. “You interrupted my meeting, for this?” He lifted a brow. “Help her fill in a report, don’t waste my time again,” he growled at the younger officer and sent him scuttling.

Charlotte breathed a sigh of relief and became instantaneously collected once again, crisis averted. She peered down at her cellphone and clicked the recently dialled number, thumbing a quick text…

 

_Becky, stay where you are. Give me twenty-four hours._

 

**AN: Nature of the beast but the more reviews and feedback I get, the quicker I update! You know what to do if you want more!**

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  [SONG FOR THE CHAPTER](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBAeQqDYBu8)   
> 

Inside an old dilapidated chicken coop down near the water, where the wind raced under the door and rattled the flame inside the lantern, where the upheaval of moss pushed up against the stone bricks and made for a damp, unpleasant smell, the two contract killers wrestled with their sleeping bags—wrestled with each other for the prime real estate where the roof above was mainly intact, mainly—and said nothing of importance in the process.

In Charlotte’s mind, it was the calm before the storm. It was the quiet that precipitated confessions that could never be taken back. When she settled in a position that wasn’t completely uncomfortable, shuffling and boring herself into the warmth of the sleeping bag, her eyes cracked open in surprise barely a moment later, she looked down and stared at the slender arm that had slung itself over her waist, over fidgeting muscles that instantly stilled beneath the calloused fingertips. The confessions were on the brink of themselves already.

“...And Laszlo?” Becky yawned and cosied closer.

“Convinced you’re dead. We all were… for a little while. I’m not in a rush to call him with the good news, I like the idea of a mini-vacation.” It was said with a disinterested tone, as if the conviction of the troublemaker’s death hadn’t kept Charlotte awake at night for months on end. “So...” She cleared her throat. “Manila?”

“Manila.” Becky let out a long pleased sigh, as if it were the vacation of a lifetime. “You missed a treat.”

“Cables up your ass?” Charlotte clarified, her hand slipping into the warmth of Becky’s palm around her waist.

“Sometimes they gave me second servings, but only when I asked nicely.” The cheeky one grew cheekier.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner, and I’m sorry that I nearly killed you for real. I, well.” Charlotte scratched her head. “I should have probably started there.”

“You’re not sorry.” Becky snorted.

“You’re right,” Charlotte sighed and tried to compound her existential revelations into words that would make sense. “I wish that I was sorry, I want to be sorry, and maybe that’s sorry enough? What do you think?”

Becky hmm’d for a moment and thought about it, her nose digging through long blonde hair until it was nuzzling the back of her hairline. “I’ll take it, call it a tentative ceasefire if you like?” Charlotte was given a few reassuring pats to her belly.

Charlotte paused for a moment and tried to enjoy whatever this was. Though she didn’t, and she couldn’t. The wind was creeping under the door and rattling her bones; the arm around her waist presented one more obstacle on top of the cosy sleeping bag for the hunting knife that was strapped to her thigh; the unpleasant smell of mildew did nothing but remind her that she could easily be somewhere… without the smell of mildew. But, she had questions and the woman who held the answers nuzzled a bit closer against her spine for warmth.

“You have a daughter,” Charlotte acknowledged, dumbly.

“Your name is Patricia.”

“Don’t do that.”

“What? I thought we were recapping?”

“Why didn’t you have an abortion?” Charlotte blurted and didn’t care for feelings or proper etiquette. The body against her own didn’t so much as flinch, not that it would put the confused woman off for a moment even if it did. “You made a decision. You made an active decision to bear a child and I’m just… trying to piece together how that happened?”

“You know, some mysteries are worth keeping—”

“Don’t fucking quote me to me, it’s not cute.” Charlotte grew frustrated and fidgety.

“Well alright.” The back of Charlotte’s neck was warmed with a long, deep sigh. “When I put my uncles away — my grandad’s provo mates, I mean — they were well aware I was a Garda. I was disowned in the beginning… I needed a way back into the fold.” Becky paused, but the interim of her silence wasn’t filled with the weight of guilt or remorse, instead it was prideful and self-congratulatory, almost. “I had to prove that I had only joined the Garda for a bit of reconnaissance and that my heart was still with the cause. Uncle Jack’s boy was a year older than me, nice lad really, dopey, made for an easy target, and so before I shot him half-a-mile from a British army barracks I made sure he got me pregnant. Poor Rebecca Kelly, lost her old man to the troubles and now the father of her wee bastard child.” She chuckled to herself. “It took a while, but they never doubted I was with them right until the handcuffs went on. By then it was too late for an abortion, I had Aoife no more than two weeks after that.”

“Thank god,” Charlotte sighed a breath of relief. “I knew there had to be a reasonable explanation.”

“She’s a little cracker though, isn’t she?” Becky sounded full of pride. “Part of me hoped maybe I would hold her and feel something, but she cried and all I wanted was to put her down and move on to the next thing.”

“Put her down… as in…?”

“As in down in her basin! Not in a shallow grave, you fucking psychopath.”

“So you felt nothing?” Charlotte furrowed her brow.

“Not really, no, nothing beyond the primal.” Becky didn’t skip a beat. “I come now and then to see her, she makes me laugh and I tell her as much but I think maybe I’m fond of her because she’s my little trophy. I look at her and I remember the way my uncles cried when the gavel came down in the courtroom. It’s a lovely feeling.” Charlotte felt the troublemaker’s lips curl into a smile on the back of her neck. “Also she calls me Mammy no matter how many times I tell her to call me by my name, but I like it now, it feels homely. I think I make a lovely mammy.”

“I think your daughter would agree.”

“Well, she’s carved out of my arse.” Becky shrugged in the dark. “If we’re being honest…” She stopped abruptly. “Actually forget it, go to sleep.”

“Don’t make me stab you again.” Charlotte hated how much she needed to hear all of the half-considered musings that crossed her troublemaker’s mind, and she was beyond seeking a reason for it.

A moment passed, filled with contemplation and how exactly to put it in the right words, Charlotte could already tell. After another moment, the Irishwoman hmph’d and snuggled deeper, as if Charlotte were a teddy bear to take her troubles out on.

“When I was dying, well, the most recent occasion, I mean…” Charlotte felt Becky’s eyebrows do the thing against the back of her neck. “There was no one else in the world that I wanted to see just one last time… I would have gave just about anything to sit through one of her stupid class assemblies that she’s always begging on and on for me to go to, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much I do not fancy doing that on any ordinary day when I am not dying.”

“I don’t think that qualifies you for any mother of the year awards, Becks.”

 

…

 

The morning mist was quiet and thick over the rolling green lands. The trees were unsymmetrical and disordered, packed thickly in some parts, sparse and thin in other areas, but they rose up from the fog proudly to welcome the new day and obscured them from the singular cottage some acres away in the distance in the process. The swell of fresh water pushed up against the ground and made for a cold bath, though Charlotte would rather smell than deal with the ungodly chill this early in the morning. She sat by the burning twigs and logs, crackling and popping, just about cooking their breakfast in the pot above, while the troublemaker bobbed and cleaned her bruised skin in the crisp water.

From her spot in the water, Becky lowered herself deeper and stared with her brown eyes peeking just over the surface, like a crocodile, or maybe an alligator, just something predatory that had the incurioused woman stirring the porridge in its sights. With a small smile, Charlotte ladled spoonfuls into her canteen and glugged a mouthful of hot tea. Let that damn troublemaker try, she thought to herself and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. 

By her own estimations, she was two murder attempts up on Becky and she knew, handily, that it could become three. In Charlotte’s mind, there was something relieving about that, the fact that she could still kill Becky if she had to, that she could cope with her death so long as it was her and her alone who was the cause of it, she hadn’t lost that much of herself.

“Are you going to come and eat?” Charlotte called out between a mouthful of porridge. “It’s warm, won’t be for long.”

“Didn’t put you down as the camping type, but you’re quite handy, I’ll give you that much.” Becky pushed up on her feet in the shallows and trudged towards her towel and clothes, smirking and impressed.

When Becky stopped, when she craned over and lifted the towel off the sparse grass, every bruise and mark became all the more violent in contrast against the blue tinge of her cool damp skin. The Queen exhaled through her nose and quickly made an audit of the injuries. A pinkened raised scar from a stab wound, a dozen fading lash marks, at least ten miscellaneous bruises that could have been anything from punches to having a chair wrapped around her, and two busted ribs later, Charlotte was certain that her little idiot had been through quite the trouble on her way back home.

“I really did put you down as the prissy type,” Becky said, nodding to the handiwork of a meagre fire and hot breakfast as she dried herself off, impressed and only growing all the more impressed if the measure of her smirk was anything to go by.

“I’m ex-army, you think I don’t know how to start a fire or survive off MRE rations?” Charlotte screwed a look. “Don’t get it twisted, I’m the top out of the two of us.” She rolled her eyes.

“Oh, is that so?” Becky’s brown eyes glimmered mischievously. “Big daddy about town, are we?”

“Be careful.” Charlotte glugged a sip of hot tea and crossed her feet. “I might have to go looking for a pair of jump start cables.”

“God, I wish you would.”

“I’m not sure you could take much more.” Charlotte nodded to the littered bruises that were being patted dry with the towel, unsure of what it was exactly she was feeling. “I could… I could go and get you some medicine… if you need it?” She instantly regretted offering.

“I’m the top out of the two of us,” Becky mimicked nasally and span around, her face screwing up into an expression of sheer mockery. “Look at me, I’m Charlotte, stabby-stabby, shooty-shooty, I’m the top, oh, Becky! Can I get you some medicine? My poor little sweet baby—”

“Fine.” Charlotte folded her arms angrily. “Suffer.”

They sat around the fire well into the afternoon, and there was an occasional awkward kiss, but only once in a while. For the most part, Becky curled up and napped by the warmth, and Charlotte was more than happy to sit and work through her surprise that the troublemaker was so brazen with her newly founded trust. She almost wanted to stab her again just for the sake of keeping her on her toes, although she was long past trying to believe that she wanted to.

A twig cracked in the distance.

Tired and yawning, Becky dozed and rubbed her eyes, smiling and aware of the little beast that haunted these lands. It was that sight that made the blonde smile too, smile despite her confusion, smile despite her long-standing inability to smile at ordinary things, but smile they both did, for entirely different reasons.

“You will have to do better than that!” Becky yelled out to the tiny stalker with a growing grin.

When the little one came into view, dirt smeared across her face and school dress, split lip bleeding, both of their smiles immediately faltered. Aoife was red in the cheeks but she hadn’t been crying, her lips were tight against one another, fidgeting, infuriated, her small eyes darting between her mother and her scuffed school shoes.

Becky sat upright and stiff.

“Did you win?” Becky asked, surveying the cuts on her daughter’s tiny knuckles. There was a deep anticipatory furrow of her brow, as if only the right answer would soothe and suffice.

Aoife didn’t reply for a moment, just merely shook her head. “Her and her friends are two years above me… they pick on me because of the terrible awful that you did before you left.” It wasn’t said with accusation, or with a tempestuous whirlwind of blame, instead it was uttered with resolution, as if Aoife didn’t mind but was merely stating the facts of the case.

“Right.” Becky nodded and pushed herself up, staring furiously at her daughter. “Let’s go.”

“Mammy—”

“I will not hear of it.” She raised her finger authoritatively. “Do you have the key for Granny’s house on you?”

“Granny got a special safe for the guns after she caught me playing, Mammy—”

“That wasn’t why I was asking.” Becky shook her head and blinked. “Come on, we’re going. Do you know where they are? Where they might be?” She dragged the little girl by under her arm.

“Uh, Becky?” Charlotte felt like she should mention the obvious considering they were supposed to be keeping a low profile.

“Oh don’t you start too!” Becky already began to set off toward the direction of civilisation with the tiny troublemaker sulking in close proximity.

“You’re not wearing any pants!” Becky stopped and looked down at her bruised skinny legs, realising suddenly.

“Aye, right you are.” Becky turned back and grabbed her jeans from beside the fire. “Didn’t think to mention I wasn’t decent, Aoife? I see Rebecca has finally gone mad, that’s what they would all be saying! There she is without her trousers on dragging her wain down the path! I hope you know this comes back on me?” She parroted her favourite line with a serious stare as she wrestled her legs into her pants.

Charlotte went with them and wasn’t exactly sure why, it wasn’t because she felt like she had to, or even because she really wanted to, maybe just because the thought of Becky breaking the vow and murdering three girls under the age of eleven presented an opportunity to study her a bit further. And there it was again, Charlotte realised suddenly as they all clambered over the slick stone wall that made for slippery footing, what does a psychopath care about if not herself? Charlotte hoped to make a few more discoveries.

“Did you lamp them back?” Charlotte watched the mother and daughter duo become precisely that, a fiercely protective mother and a little girl who needed her mammy to fix all of this. Becky grew all the more infuriated by her daughter’s inaudible mumbling. “Did you hear me, Aoife? I asked you if you threw punches back!” Becky’s voice grew a few hairs, her hand shooting out to bring Aoife to a stand-still.

“How else d’ya think I got these cuts on me knuckles, Mammy?” Aoife thrusted her hand up to her mother’s face for closer inspection. “I went for the big one just like you told me too but she ducked and I landed my knuckles on the dining room wall, that’s when they all piled on top of me.”

Becky sighed and nodded a bit. “We’ll straighten it out,” she said, decisively.

Down the path a half mile or so, they came to a small community center with a mural of long dead men painted on the side. Charlotte studied it a bit as they walked around the back, there were eight faces painted on the mural with a tricolour flag in the background. The little one caught Charlotte staring at the image, her smile widening a little as if it were a perfect teaching moment.

“That’s one’s me da, and that’s me great-granda there in the middle.” Aoife pointed and tugged on Becky’s arm to bring her to a brief halt. “And I don’t know what the writing is supposed to mean underneath but it looks the business, big girl.” Aoife smirked at the blonde.

Becky’s eyes grew wide, her stare focusing intently on the child, full of disappointment, unable to comprehend what had just came out of her little mouth. She turned and scanned the gaelic words that had been painted beneath the mural, then looked back to Aoife.

“You mean to say—” Becky shifted and rubbed the back of her neck, blinking and quiet for a moment. “You can’t read or write in Gaeilge? You can’t understand what that says? Your great-grandfather and uncles would be rolling in their graves! Well, if they were dead too.” Becky pinched the bridge of her nose, as if it were still on her list of things to get round to.

“Nobody speaks Gaeilge anymore, Mammy.” Aoife rolled her eyes.

“Ná bí ag iarraidh cluain an chacamais a chur orm!” Becky snapped, and the little cheeky one just stared back dumbfounded, not sure what her mother was saying but fairly certain it wasn’t a compliment.

“Woah!” Charlotte lifted her hands and the laughter roared out of her. “Wait, wait, wait—” The laughter became consuming. “What the fuck was that? You mean… you mean to tell me this entire time you didn’t think to mention you can talk like you’re a Dothraki from Game of Thrones?” The surprise was astounding and amusing, simultaneously.

“Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.” Becky pointed out the words below the mural for the little troublemaker. “And, as for you.” Her precarious stare found the giggler. “It’s a language recognised by the United Nations, and yes, I speak it.” She glared.

Aoife shrugged and kept walking. “Still don’t know what that means, Mammy.”

“Shame of my life.” Becky rolled her eyes and followed. “Aye, there goes Rebecca’s daughter, the one who can’t speak her own tongue, I hope you know this comes back on me!” she mimicked what these supposed people that Charlotte kept hearing so much about would apparently say every time Aoife passed them in the street.

Charlotte caught up to Becky, hiding her exuberant grin, almost, but not quite. It wasn’t the information she thought she would learn but apparently there was more to Becky than she imagined, an entire language, a whole linguistic pattern of memories and experiences that she didn’t know of but wanted to, desperately. It was another piece of the puzzle, another chunk of her existence that needed to be ordered and comprehended.

“Shut up.” Becky didn’t even wait for anything to be said.

“Sure thing, Khaleesi.” Charlotte knitted her brows, amused.

A few minutes of walking took them to the gates of a catholic church at the bottom of the hill. It was a strange place for a group of pre-teen girls to spend their afternoons but Aoife was certain this was where they would be, and so Charlotte said nothing and trailed quietly at the back of the pack with her hands dug in her pockets. They walked around the church to the ancient cemetery behind the building where four girls sat giggling on a bench with cans of sugary drinks in hand a short distance away.

“Is that them?” Becky dropped her voice.

“Aye, should I hold your jacket while you shoot them, Mammy?” Aoife extended her hands expectantly, and the sight made Charlotte bite an amused smile and look away.

“Aoife, me and big girl—”

“Stop calling me big girl!” Charlotte instantly soured.

“Me and big girl are going to stand here,” Becky continued with a stern stare at the bruised little girl. “And we’re not going home until you’ve battered the living shite out of them.”

“But there’s four of them, Mammy,” Aoife trailed quietly and looked over to the girls who had long since stopped giggling and were staring right back at them. “I’m only seven and they’re nine and ten…”

“Go on, you better get cracking then.” Becky pushed her gently in the right direction.

Aoife swallowed and lifted her chin, and Charlotte could tell that all of this was just to make her mother proud, and on some level it was a sad realisation because the Queen knew that pride was an emotion that Becky reserved almost exclusively for herself. The girls got up from the bench and ran through the headstones towards Aoife which made her stop dead in her tracks, little legs shaking, her school bag rattling on her shoulder.

“Came back for more dijya, wee girl?” The bigger one laughed to herself as her friends gathered around like hyenas. “Are we supposed to be scared that you brought ya mammy with you?” She folded her arms, head cocked to the side.

“Yes!” Aoife snapped and nodded. “I brought big girl too and you should be scared because their ninjas and when I’m done with you they’re going to go and kill all of your mammies!” She shouted with utter conviction.

Charlotte was quick to clarify her position. “I’m not killing their parents, Becky, you got your daughter into this mess and I want no part of it,” she whispered to the pensive growler beside her.

“Just, give her a minute.” Becky didn’t take her eyes off of Aoife.

“Please, that girl has thirty pounds on her.” Charlotte nodded to the chubby ringleader with scuffed fists. “I know who my money is on…”

“Just, give her a minute!” Becky insisted.

The ringleader stepped forward with a grin on her reddened face, she wound a fist back so far that the two contract killers saw what was about to happen about ten seconds before Aoife caught wind of the situation. It was too late by the time she caught on, the punch hit her square between the eyes and levelled Aoife like a demolition. Charlotte won the bet, but she didn’t feel good about it.

Becky didn’t so much as flinch as the four girls reigned down kicks on her daughter.

“Becks, she’s taking a beating…” Charlotte felt like she should state the obvious point.

“Yep, and she’ll take a few more.” Becky was decisive and unconcerned.

When Aoife got herself up off the ground, nose bloodied, mud painted down the back of her dress, she refused to cry, still. Charlotte watched the little girl drag herself half way back to them as the bullies laughed and teased her, but Becky firmly crossed her arms and shook her head.

“I don’t want to do this anymore, Mammy,” Aoife whispered in protest with downcast eyes.

“We’re not leaving until you make this right.” Becky pointed at the four bigger girls mocking the little troublemaker. “Go, hurry this up so we can head home.”

“Mammy…”

“Am I speaking in Gaeilge?”

Aoife slumped slightly and closed her eyes, well aware she would be made all the more bruised and sore before this came to an end. Charlotte watched her grit her teeth as she turned back around, determined, a little fire left in her belly. She wasn’t sure why Becky was so insistent, but she had her ideas, mainly her own pride, mainly her own need to produce a child stronger than any other for her own ego. Charlotte kept her thoughts to herself and watched on, intrigued.

“Is that all you’ve got, you fat slag?” Aoife roared, and the ringleader stopped laughing immediately.

“What did you just call me?” The ringleader clenched her fists again and grew redder with rage.

Aoife threw the first punch this time, although she missed completely, a moment later, the blows reigned down on her from the four girls but Aoife refused to buckle, she windmilled her fists and caught two of them in the mouth and sent them running off like cowards. The ringleader, the supposed fat slag if Charlotte had heard the insult correctly, grabbed Aoife by her ginger plait and cracked her between the eyes once again.

Aoife slumped to the dirt and clutched her face.

Charlotte leaned towards the other hitwoman. “What’s a slag?”

“Shh. Shh! Just, shh! You’re spoiling it.” Becky pinched her nose and watched intently.

When Aoife clambered back up to her wobbling feet, the ringleader grabbed her by the jaw and dragged her back over to the pair of them, shoving her on the floor at Becky’s feet. Charlotte watched Becky out of the corner of her eyes, waiting for it, waiting for the moment she would snap and start windmilling ten year olds. The ringleader was starting to get awfully big for her boots after all.

It didn’t come.

“Pick yourself up,” Becky instructed calmly at the tiny muddied creature at her feet.

Aoife whimpered and clutched her bruised cheek. “Mammy…”

“I said pick yourself up!” Becky snapped loudly.

Charlotte shifted uncomfortably and felt as though she should do something, but she didn’t, she stood there with hands dug in the back of her pockets and watched the little girl clamber up off her grazed knees. There was a small war of words between them, a whirlwind of protests, but Aoife lost the argument and was forced to go looking for more trouble with the two girls who had started to wander back over to the bench. 

The Irishwoman stood there, wind whipping her long red hair, watching on with flared nostrils, refusing anything less than a decisive victory.

“Why are you doing this?” Charlotte asked, curiously.

“Because she is weak and life is tough.”

“Seriously?”

“What?” Becky screwed her face and peered at Charlotte. “You want me to go and fight her battles for her?” The Irishwoman maintained a level tone, as if she were holding in all the anger that wanted nothing more than to do precisely that.

“It’s not that I want you too it’s…  _ oh shit—” _ Charlotte caught it out of the corner of her eye, the makeshift weapon, the cumbersome fistful of house keys inside the ringleader’s clenched hand as she span and cracked Aoife in the face with a shard of metal sticking out between her fingers. “Oh. Oh, that’s a hospital trip.” Charlotte nodded emphatically.

Becky grew tense like every muscle in her body was being compressed.

Aoife cried and ran hell to leather back to them, her knees wobbling beneath her, blood dribbling through the fingers pressed against the tiny puncture wound on her cheek. She cried so hard that she almost gagged on her own tears. Becky remained quiet, and even in pain, bleeding, trembling, humiliated beyond words, Aoife was still smart enough not to try for a hug, instead she just stood there and waited for the beratement.

“I asked you if you had Granny’s house key with you, did I not?” Becky crouched and kept a level, calm tone. “Did I, or did I not?”

Her daughter nodded slightly but was too ashamed to look up at her, and it carried over to Charlotte. She knew the things she was presently feeling were emotions she had little experience with, feelings that she didn’t want to become well acquainted with, but she felt them anyway, the want to protect the little troublemaker, the sadness that her own mother wouldn’t. She sighed and counted to three in her head, and by the end of it her feelings were put away.

“Why didn’t you think to use your house keys first?” Becky challenged and took her daughter’s chin between her thumb and finger, appraising the tiny, deep cut. “Just a scratch, you’ll live. I’m not angry with you, well, I am angry with you… but only because whenever I think you’re going to impress me you let me down!” She rolled her eyes and stood up on her feet. “Come on, I’ll take you home...”

“I thought you wanted me to fight fair, Mammy,” Aoife exhaled, shakily.

“Now what in God’s name would give you that idea?” Becky became angrier. “Life isn’t fair! Christ, Aoife! Fighting isn’t about being fair, fighting is about one thing and one thing only, winning—”

Aoife took off as quickly as she could, full of purpose, full of anger and spite and a need to prove something bigger. Charlotte watched her bend down and grab a heavy lump of rock too big for her grasp as she ran, so big that it weighed her down on one side as she sprinted toward the girls walking back to their bench, but sprint she did, lopsided, arm loaded.

“Here we go!” Becky roared and grew ten inches taller. “Go on, girl! There you go!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me?” Charlotte snapped her stare to the side.

“That’s my girl!” Becky thumped the blonde’s bicep, her eyes wide with pride. “By god… that’s my girl…” She watched on, awestruck.

Aoife swung and bludgeoned the hyena so hard that the girl fell and didn’t get back up. The ringleader stopped in shock, like a dumb bull in a paddock, stood there with her forearms raising up defensively as Aoife swung the rock down with both hands and struck her as hard as she could, again and again.

“Stop!” She squealed and crumpled to the floor, arms covering her head, knees tucked up to her belly as the blows reigned down. “Please, I give! I give! I’m begging! Please stop!” The ringleader squealed like a pig.

“Beg harder!” Aoife swung the rock up over her head and brought it down as hard as she could.

Becky made slow work of walking over to her daughter. Charlotte watched her hesitate, hovering and holding herself back, allowing the littlest troublemaker to get a few more blows in before she called it a day. The Irishwoman bent down and plucked her daughter by the back of her collar. Charlotte smiled at the little girl’s handiwork, at the broken wrist that was unnaturally sticking out to the side, at the deep gash across the ringleader’s forehead, at the little hyena a few metres away who was only now just starting to drag herself back to her feet. A contract killer she might become, yet.

“I’m telling my mam!” The ringleader sobbed hysterically, clutching her broken wrist, her mouth gaping open with the hysterics of it all.

“Here, take her a minute.” Becky calmly handed her daughter over to Charlotte.

Becky grabbed the hyena with a busted eye and dragged her over, then she grabbed the ringleader and hauled her to her feet. At Charlotte’s hip, Aoife became excited, adrenaline rushing, thumping her little feet as if she was about to see her mother in action. Charlotte couldn’t help herself, she slung an arm over the little girl and they watched on together.

“You both know who I am, I take it?” Becky growled at them with a pointed expression.

Tearfully, both of the girls nodded.

“Good, that’s very good.” Becky smiled. “You’re going to go home and tell your mammies that you were playing on that there wall…” She pointed to the far distance where the cemetery wall rose up with a sheer drop on the other side where the road curved underneath. “You’ll tell them you slipped and had yourselves a wee accident and we’ll forget all about this, won’t we girls? Because if you don’t...” Becky gravely shook her head. “I’ll fucking kill the pair of you.”

“Okay, Becky,” Charlotte interjected. “We should probably get going—”

“Ay, let her finish, big girl, no need to rush.” Aoife patted Charlotte’s hip firmly.

 

…

“You were magic out there,” Becky whispered proudly, wary of Charlotte hearing such things, knowing how severely she would regret it. She held her daughter’s neck and pressed their foreheads together for a moment. When she pulled away, the cotton wool was dipped in the stinging liquid and pressed against Aoife’s cheek once again, but the little girl didn’t wince, she just smiled this mischievous, wolfish grin, and let her mother dab her cut.

“Granny is going to be mad,” Aoife reminded.

“Mmm, with you, maybe.” Becky shrugged and squeezed her shoulder. “Do you understand why I had to let you take a beating?”

“Not really.”

“Granny won’t be around forever. I won’t be around forever—”

“You’re barely around, Mammy.”

“I just want you to be tough now instead of learning the hard way, I want you to be prepared.” Becky ruffled her hair. “It’s not much, but I can give you that.”

“Wait…” Aoife blinked and grew hesitant. “Does this mean you’re leaving again, Mammy?”

Becky exhaled and looked away for a moment, filled with a kind of shame that was tentative with newness. She was going soft, it must be that, probably from all the near-death experiences. When she turned and found Aoife’s eyes again, they were furious this time, pearling, hateful, desperately trying not to be, but she just couldn’t hide her maddening fury.

Becky sighed. “I have better things to be doing, I make a lot of money these days—”

“I don’t care about money.” Aoife crossed her arms and nodded to the tin where her bank book was locked away. “I already have enough money for the both of us, maybe even big girl too, but only if she doesn’t take up too much room. You could stay, Mammy, I would look after you.”

“I’m not a good person, Aoife,” Becky tried to reason with the child.

“I don’t want you to be a good person.” Aoife didn’t skip a beat, her small brow furrowing deeply. “I just want you to be my mammy…”

“Granny is a better mammy.”

“Because she loves me and you can’t?”

“Something like that.” Becky scratched the back of her neck and wasn’t so certain about the facts anymore. “You’ll outgrow this place one day, you’ll outgrow me too, is é sin do díoltas.” She laughed at the thought.

“I’ve no clue what you’re talking on.”

“I said, that will be your revenge.” Becky pushed half a smile and patted the little girl’s shoulder. She paused for a moment, peering intently at her daughter. “Have I ever told you that you have your father’s mouth?” The realisation made her heart hurt a little bit.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Probably not, it was the thing that got him killed in the end.”

“Did you love my da?” Aoife tilted her head to one side and pouted her lips in such a way that it reminded the troublemaker of a man who had long since stopped trying to haunt her nightmares.

“Yes,” Becky admitted the truth and hated herself for it. “I think he might be the only person I’ve ever loved. He was stupid, no sense about him, but he knew what I was and he loved me anyway, you be sure to find yourself a boy who does the same, one day, when you’re older…” The door creaked open, and Becky clenched her eyes closed, immediately regretting the slither of honesty.

“Aoife it’s getting late, your grandmother will come looking for you if you don’t go home soon.” Charlotte reminded them of the time and said little else.

 

…

 

Inside an old dilapidated chicken coop down near the water, where the wind raced under the door and rattled the flame inside the lantern, where the upheaval of moss pushed up against the stone bricks and made for a damp, unpleasant smell, the two contract killers wrestled with their sleeping bags—wrestled with each other for the prime real estate where the roof above was mainly intact, mainly—and said nothing of importance in the process.

In Becky’s mind, it was the calm before the storm. It was the quiet that precipitated confessions that could never be taken back.

“So, you didn’t actually kill him?” Charlotte spoke up first, rolling on her side to slip an arm over the troublemaker’s hip. The quiet of the room was ominous as Becky looked up and could only make out the blue eyes peering at her, and then a faint smile form in Charlotte’s cheeks.

“I did.” Becky insisted, her fingers playing with soft, long blonde hair. “I could kill you too, if I wanted to, I wouldn’t lose sleep over it.”

“I know.” Charlotte reassured. “But posturing aside… how did he really die?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I never suggested that you did.”

“He was cheeky, smart, stupid, god he was so stupid, and yet so smart!” Becky unravelled slightly remembering it all, relieved to finally get it out of her system. “And the shoulders on him! By god, I’ve never seen a man with shoulders like that before, doubt I ever will again, what a ride!” She shook her head slightly.

“So you loved him?” Charlotte inhaled and held her breath for a moment, and it felt as if she were piecing a jigsaw together where the bits just didn’t fit. Becky felt long fingers slip up and trace her temple, and from where she was laying, the outline of Charlotte’s muscular shoulder was carved with moonlight.

It was a nice sight, reminded her of a time and place she once forgot.

“I loved how much he loved me,” Becky reasoned and chewed her jaw slightly. “I got confused for a little bit but I made it right in the end… I… I finished the thing I set out to do.”

“Let me guess, falling in love with him wasn’t part of the plan and when you both realised there was a baby involved you decided to run away?” Becky was beyond being irritated by the way Charlotte always had to be so damn right, although this did feel particularly show-offy. “Did you bail at the last minute?” Her voice was tempered and level, curious, still.

“You’re getting awfully personal.”

“You’re the person that I want to be personal with.”

“I liked him a damn sight more than I’ll ever come close to liking you.”

“Well there’s no need to be rude.” Charlotte wasn’t offended in the slightest, just amused.

“It’s funny.” Becky scoffed and thought about it for a moment, digging deeper inside the sleeping bag. “Running away… it was never my style, hunters don’t run away, they chase things, that’s what I thought at least, old clever bollocks. But when I shot him… when he laid there dying like an animal… he told me he forgave me and I’ve been running away ever since.”

“How many people do you think you’ve killed?”

“Two hundred and seventy-seven, seventy-nine if we’re including accidents. You?”

“Three hundred or so.” Charlotte apparently didn’t keep track. “How many do you think you would have killed if you had ran away with him that night?”

“Probably a lot less, but this life has been a lot more fun, so there’s that too.”

“Hmm, true.” Charlotte agreed with a smirk. “Maybe it’s not all bad, the heartbreaks, the ones we regret, maybe it all leads to something…”

“Where have your mistakes lead you to, Charlotte?” There was a long pause.

“You,” Charlotte whispered through the dark.

Becky smiled and leaned forward to kiss the prissy one, gobbling her bottom lip, nibbling her, kissing her until the moon hid behind a cloud of fog in embarrassment. Becky pulled away eventually, both of them settled back down and snuggled closer again, hands on waists, chest to chest, their foreheads against one another.

“This is only going to end in heartbreak, isn’t it?” Becky didn’t know how much more of it she could take before she lost the tiny bit of feeling she had left.

“May the better woman live long enough to suffer it.” Charlotte rolled over and nuzzled backwards into the troublemaker’s hips. “Goodnight, Becky.”

 

**AN: If you want another chapter, be sure to leave a review! I've really enjoyed writing this story and I'm not sure I want to leave it here when there's still so much to be explored!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [SONG](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSQjx79dR8s)

“What is your second favourite dessert?”

“Tiramisu.” Charlotte didn’t bother to turn away from the plane window her eyes were fixed on as the small talk became exactly that.

“Mine’s rhubarb crumble,” Becky replied instantly. “And your first?”

“Banana pudding.”

“Disgusting.”

“I wasn’t seeking your approval.”

“Good, because you’re not getting it.” Becky folded her arms as if she were truly, deeply offended. “Banana pudding, absolute mayhem.” Her ginger head shook in disbelief.

“The best night of your life?” Charlotte lifted a brow.

“Not with you.” Becky smirked. “It was the military attaché to the Ambassador of Qatar. He was a ride. The man knew exactly what to do with his hands, well, right before I cut them off—”

“You should probably cover your ears.” Charlotte interrupted, she craned her head forward to peer at the unaccompanied minor sat beside them. “Go on, headphones on.” She nodded down to the wide-eyed little boy.

Becky smirked a naughty wolfish grin as he did as he was told.

“Little ears always listening.” Becky looked back at Charlotte and wiggled her eyebrows in amusement.

“Considering little mouths are the first to talk you should probably work on your spacial awareness.” Charlotte leaned back in her seat and rubbed her forehead. “Twenty minutes until we land. Food first or pit-stop at the hotel before dinner?”

“There’s only one thing I want to eat and you’re sitting on it.”

“Don’t be crass,” Charlotte warned, stern and quiet.

When the plane landed they made efficiently quick work of the airport. After passport control, Becky grabbed the bags, Charlotte bought the coffees, a quick jaunt to the taxi rank later, and they were on their way to the outskirts of Zurich with barely two words said between them the entire car trip.

The snow fell and coated the world in a neatly crisp blanket of white, piling on top of cars and thatched roofs politely without much disturbance. The air was cold and sharp, stinging their cheeks and noses as they walked and pressed against one another for warmth. Switzerland was picturesque this time of year, that’s what the travel agent back in Dublin had advised, however he did forget to mention to pack Arctic-ready coats and wooly hats, and so they wandered along with their inadequately thin jackets wrapped around their chilling bones and their hands entwined with one another.

“I hate this,” Becky admitted with a roll of her eyes.

“Me too.” Charlotte stopped and looked around. “I did mean it when I said I wanted to runaway with you for a little while until it all dies down but… gingerbread and hot cocoa isn’t really my speed.” She shrugged.

Becky nodded in agreement and pouted slightly, thinking hard.

“Shall we go straight for the hotel and just fuck all night instead?” Becky turned and looked at her with a wry smirk, as if it were the best idea she’d had all day. “We can go back to the airport in the morning and try again.”

“Eh.” Charlotte shrugged and bobbed her head side to side as she weighed it up. “I guess there’s worse ways to spend a night.”

 

…

 

In Marakesh, Morocco, the outskirts of the city to be exact, a singular yellow apartment building rose proudly from a colourful street with market traders shouting and selling spices to passing custom below. It was a swelteringly hot day — too hot for either of them to care to go outside. Seventies disco music blared from the open balcony doors at the top and angered the people below, which only made Becky turn it up louder and sing around the living room while breakfast burned in the pan.

It wasn’t keeping a low cover. Charlotte didn’t need it to be. She was the deadliest female assassin in the world… and number two on the list was currently wearing number one’s unbuttoned white shirt and blowing kisses a few feet away.

“Ohhhhhhhh yes sir! I can boogie! but I need a certain song…” Becky twirled around on the wooden floor in a spot where a hot streak of sunshine cut through the open balcony doors and warmed her skin. “I can boogie, boogie boogie, all night looooooong!” She span and shimmied her hips.

Charlotte blinked and stared at the insane woman.

“Is that…” She paused for a moment and looked to  the half naked troublemaker with last night’s lipstick still smeared around the inside of her thigh dancing wildly. “Is that supposed to turn me on?” She furrowed her brow.

“Is it working?” Becky grinned wickedly and flashed her breasts.

“It’s not your best work,” Charlotte said pithily and reached for a pack of cigarettes on the coffee table. “You dance like someone is holding you at gunpoint… but... the thought of holding you at gunpoint until you dance for me? Well.” She smiled slightly and narrowed her eyes.

When she lit the cigarette and leaned backwards against her seat, inhaling a long deep puff, her long legs tossed up on to the coffee, toes wiggling in the vibrant heat, head nodding away to the neverending chorus of the song on repeat, she turned her head and looked at the troublemaker who had long since stopped dancing.

“Have you ever been in a relationship?” Becky raised an eyebrow.

“Ask me a different question.” Charlotte chewed her jaw. “Ask me if—”

“You know the rules of the game,” Becky reminded of the agreement they shared with one another. “Any question, any time, always an honest answer, on the risk of death otherwise.” Her slender nose wrinkled with a slight scowl.

Charlotte brought the cigarette to her lips and kept it there for a moment, puffing, then rubbing the back of her neck. It was a terrible idea this game but the thing that irritated Charlotte the most was how much she always wanted to answer truthfully. Sometimes just for the sake of having a person to be honest with. Sometimes just for the hope that an answer would be surprising enough to see the faint outline of surprise in Becky’s expression.

Sometimes, just because it was nice believing for a moment that Becky truly cared about the answer.

Charlotte was too smart to know the latter was true. She believed for the most part Becky asked personal questions for one thing and one thing only, leverage. The thought of Becky feeling things deep enough to be frightened by the fact flattered Charlotte. It felt strangely like a compliment.

“Once. I’ve only been in a relationship once.” Charlotte finally answered. “Although I did marry them,” she added, quietly.

“Man or woman?” Becky infuriated her with the way she didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. “I can’t imagine you at an alter, in white, virginal and pure.” The Irishwoman smirked and moved to the sofa to sit down.

“The Elvis at the Little White Chapel special — four-hundred dollars plus courthouse fees which is _barely_  a wedding at all. I was twenty-one. He… was not twenty-one.” Charlotte smirked slightly too and peered at the troublemaker with a wry look. “I was young and figuring out who I was and he was none of those things. It made him interesting, maybe. It was never going to be a white picket fence and three kids in the suburbs but he respected that. I liked that he respected that.”

“So you married him because of what exactly?” It was a glorious feeling watching Becky become perplexed and exasperated.

“I was twenty-one and heading to boot camp because I thought the military would give me some stability! What else was I going to do? Not marry the first man I could tolerate?”

“So how did you kill him?” Becky hurried to the conclusion.

Charlotte paused and smiled for a moment.

“Who said he’s dead?” Charlotte savoured the way it immediately earned a deep, frightening glare as if the thought of an ex-husband existing in the world was something Becky couldn’t tolerate.

“Well.” Becky cleared her throat after a moment passed. “I didn’t put you down as the cordial divorce type?” She tried to seem unphased.

“That’s because I never divorced him.”

“What do you mean you didn’t divorce him?” Becky spat.

“I mean… I never got round to divorcing him?” Charlotte blinked and puffed her cigarette innocently.

“You’re lying, and you know I hate it when you smoke around me.” Becky snapped and snatched the cigarette from Charlotte’s fingertips. She knelt there on the sofa, precarious stare becoming all the more venomous and hateful, cigarette squeezed between her thumb and finger, teeth on the edge of themselves. She was utterly stuck, and Charlotte loved every second of it. “You wouldn’t do that. And even if you did do that—which you fucking didn’t—I would know about it! I know all of your little secrets, Charlotte Flair, don’t forget that...” Becky became all the more sure of herself as the cigarette was flicked over the edge of the balcony.

“I was still enjoying that.” Charlotte rolled her eyes.

“I told you if you ever lied to me I would kill you.” Becky pushed forward and grabbed Charlotte’s jaw, hard. “Are you lying to me?” She pouted softly until the soft Irish curve of her lips pushed over one another.

The fingers around Charlotte’s jaw were so tight that it made the act of smirking all the more difficult, but Charlotte did it anyway, face trapped between that wild woman’s claws, eyes looking her up and down victoriously, she smirked so hard that Becky’s growing anger was taken out against the side of her jawbones.

“I’m telling the truth,” Charlotte whispered with a soft rasp to her voice.

“I could kill him.” Becky released her with a slight push, and Charlotte rubbed her sore jaw while the troublemaker continued to hiss. “It feels awfully rude and boring of you to not mention you’re married!”

“Rude maybe… but boring?” Charlotte shook her head severely. “I’m many things but boring isn’t one of them.”

“No,” Becky cleared her throat and became thin mouthed. “I suppose you’re not boring.”

There was a heavy, ominous, thudding knock to the wooden front door. It made them both shoot a brief decisive look at one another.

“Noise complaint or the Collective catching up to us?” Charlotte asked for a second opinion, calmly.

“Get the suitcase.” Becky grabbed the Glock from the coffee table and put her breasts away. “I hate noise complaints…”

 

…

 

“Now this…” Becky whispered through a strangled tight moan and fluttered her eyes closed. “This is more my speed…” She gasped and rolled her hips.

Charlotte stayed between her thighs, kissing and nibbling her way around the outskirts of town until the troublemaker couldn’t take it anymore, until a trembling hand found the back of her blonde hair and guided her around the local attractions.

Time passed. The sunset came, and so did Becky.  When the sun finally set over the rainforest outside they remained collapsed in a warm pile of gleaming pink limbs, satisfied but not quite satisfied enough, humming against each other’s warm muscles like moths near a flame. It was strangely romantic. It was strangely… normal.

Charlotte hated that.

“Cambodia next?” Charlotte tiredly mumbled into her hip bone, desperate for something new.

“I like Belize.” Becky yawned and put her arms loosely around the psychopath’s shoulders. “Good weed is cheap and easy to come by and there’s work too with the drug cartels. It’s not much, but it keeps me busy for now. You should try it sometime.” She patted her back.

“The Collective will catch up to us eventually. It won’t always be noise complaints, Becky.” Charlotte shifted uncomfortably.

“That’s your problem, not mine.”

“You think they won’t come looking for you too?” Charlotte laughed slightly at the misplaced optimism. “They asked you to hit me and you turned down the job. An awfully bold move for a supposed psychopath. When they find out you’re not dead…”

“There’s still time to kill you yet,” Becky reassured with a raspy voice and truly meant it. “I will get bored, eventually.”

“I’m already bored,” Charlotte complained with a sigh. “It’s been…what? Two months since I last killed someone?” She winced and struggled to remember the last time she felt warm blood spatter against her cheeks.

“Laszlo told you to call him when you’re ready to work.”

“But then I have to stop doing this and actually go to work.” Charlotte became stuck between which seemed worse, Becky or Laszlo.

“There’s no pleasing you sometimes,” Becky said frustratedly.

“Well…” Charlotte danced her fingers up the middle of Becky’s chest. “I don’t know about that…” She wiggled her brows.

Becky caught the fingers dancing between her breasts and bent them back hard enough to hurt. Charlotte hissed and tried to pull away, but the troublemaker held her hand tight and pulled her closer. They kissed hard and without passion, forcefully, teeth bruising each other’s lips.

“I’m not a fuck toy to distract yourself with.” Becky pulled away and stared into her eyes. “This is nice but it won’t be nice forever, you should have something to fall back on when this starts to unravel.”

Charlotte paused and nodded.

“Understood.”

 

…

 

In Cambodia, just beyond the killing fields that those old enough to remember never talked about, they played house in a small shack sat on top of the hill overlooking a fishing village that sold tilapia and khmer, mostly. The locals whispered about them, about the coldness of their stares and the strange passionate noises that could occasionally be heard from the hill in the quiet hours of night.

Tonight officially became the tenth silent night in a row, and the locals were slowly running out of things to gossip about.

In her deepest layers of sleep, Charlotte felt movement on the bed beside her as if somebody was sitting down for a few minutes at a time and then standing back up again. It stirred her slightly, enough for her to briefly open her eyes and swallow her dry mouth.

“Oh,” Charlotte whispered tiredly at the fishing knife glinting in Becky’s hand. “Is that for me?” It was said politely and without accusation.

Becky paused for a moment with a weighty brow.

“It’s been three months and I’m bored, Charlotte. I’m so fucking bored of you that it feels like I can’t breathe.” She exhaled shakily.

“I know, me too.” Charlotte agreed quietly and then paused for a moment. “Do you want to take a walk somewhere and have a knife fight the old fashioned way or shall we head back home and go our separate ways?” She wasn’t sure she cared about either anymore.

Slowly, Becky put her knife away.

“Good.” Charlotte yawned and closed her eyes. “Let’s go back to sleep.”

 

...

 

Charlotte surveyed the abandoned amusement park, the rusted ferris wheel in the distance, the rotten wooden roller coaster that snaked around the site with support beams dotted here and there as if it were the skeleton of a long dead beast. The family theme park had been closed for some ten or maybe fifteen years after an accident that bankrupted the owners. But the chalets still stood and only one road came in and out with a view that went for some miles, so it was an ideal place to hide out for the night on their way back north.

“Well.” Becky huffed and wiped the ginger hair out of her brow as the bolt cutters were slung down. “It’s not Belize, is it?”

“Can you not?” Charlotte shot her a stern look. “It’s one night. We head north once the storm passes over then Laszlo pulls a few fingers back with the Collective, after that the only person you have to worry about killing you in the cold long night is me.” She smiled coldly.

“Hmm,” Becky rolled her eyes and kicked the chalet door in. “You say the sweetest things.”

Charlotte followed her inside and threw their bags down on the dusty counter top. The furniture and fixings were moldy and ancient, squalid even, but it would do for their last night together. Charlotte watched Becky sit down at the table and pull out the bottle of whiskey from her backpack along with two metal canteens.

Charlotte closed her eyes and smiled.

“Feeling sentimental?” She opened them again.

“For one night, maybe.” Becky poured the liquor and offered one canteen forward. “It’s been a good three months. You bored me at times, you excited me at others. I’ll drink to that?”

“To the last three months.” Charlotte clinked her metal mug and sat down at the table too. “A last night of question game?”

“Alright. Why didn’t you tell me you were married?” Becky asked instantly.

“I like having my cards close to my chest.” Charlotte shrugged. “If it makes you feel better I haven’t seen him in… hmm… maybe ten years?” She removed her jacket and leaned back against the breakfast seat. “When was the last time you felt an emotion?”

“Well right now I feel—” Becky tried to answer but Charlotte cut her off.

“No, no, stop. I’m not asking you about your mood. I’m asking you when was the last time you felt an emotion? The last time you had a _reactive_ feeling?” Charlotte made her question more pronounced and specific.

Becky’s expression became angry and narrowed but then she just swallowed and thought about it for what felt like forever.

“Istanbul, two months ago. I asked you what happened to your cat and you told me you had him put down so we could travel and I fell in love with you for three and a half minutes exactly. What about you?” Becky blinked coldly.

“I did like that cat.” Charlotte sighed and drank a little more. “Belize, the night before we left for Cambodia. You were asleep and I wanted to put a pillow over your face and watch you fight for a breath until you just… stopped fighting.” They both smiled faintly at that. “I felt sad afterwards. I think it was sadness, maybe. I realised that whatever I’ve been looking for… it wasn’t a rainforest in Belize with you.”

“Your favourite moment of me?” Becky lifted a brow expectantly.

“All the moments you weren’t actually there,” Charlotte whispered and held her stare. “Chasing you, wondering where you were, what you would do next, who would kill the other first. I liked you the most when it was me playing the role of you in the space you left behind.” It earned a smirk. “And you?”

“What’s your husband’s name?”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Kill me then. What’s your husband’s name?” Becky abruptly insisted.

“James,” Charlotte whispered. “Now what was your favourite moment of me?”

“Here, right now.” Becky shrugged and sipped her drink. “I’m a sucker for goodbyes.”

“If you kill him you know I’m going to have to snap your daughter’s neck. You know that right?” Charlotte blinked. “It’s not that I care about him but I think I like having parts of my life untouched by you.”

“Scouts honour.” Becky raised three fingers with a wicked smirk.

“Becky…” Charlotte hesitated for a moment and wanted desperately to feel something. “I’m not capable of loving you but I respect you, I want you to know that.”

“I don’t know what I’m capable of anymore,” Becky whispered and finished her drink.

 

…

 

After Laszlo cleared everything up with the Collective the hitwomen went their separate ways. Six months passed without contact. It was as if Charlotte Flair had never existed in her tiny compounded world of violence and boredom. Except, she did. She had existed. She existed until she ceased to exist. Until all that Becky had left was the ghost of her.

It wasn’t that Becky missed her because that was the wrong word all together. To miss Charlotte implied that Becky wanted her around. Sometimes she did want Charlotte around, once in a while when she was feeling sentimental at least. But if Becky had to put her finger on it the thing she truly missed then it was the game. The theatrics of it all. The paradigm of having someone to play with. The excitement of being hunted in return. It was enough to leave her playing with the idea of going after Charlotte on her best days. It was enough to leave her sickened and furious wondering if Charlotte had forgotten all about her on her worst.

It took a lot of patience and time to find the man she promised not to kill. Charlotte had done everything she could and then a little more in order to hide him away, but Becky did what she did best and found the little duplex south of nowhere that belonged to a man who had long since fell off the face of the earth.

When she kicked the door of the apartment off its hinges, the first thing that struck her was the sickly sweet smell of rotting meat and putrescine. It was enough to make her lift the balaclava and reflexively gag between her legs. Becky just about held onto her breakfast and spat the saliva that pooled in her mouth on to the floor. The light switch was flipped on and the front door closed behind her. In the kitchen the radio was playing quietly, and the song left Becky hopeful that she would find an old lover waiting for her with a knife in hand.

_‘Baby… I wanna keep my reputation. I'm a sensation… you try me once you'll beg for more. Oh, yes sir. I can boogie. But I need a certain song…’_

If Charlotte had a gun, well, that would put Becky at an immediate disadvantage. But a knife? That seemed like a fair fight that would leave a few scars to remember each other by until the next time around.

_‘Yes Sir, I can boogie! If you stay you can't go wrong… I can boogie, boogie boogie, all night long…’_

Becky pushed the door open and instantly covered her mouth and nose from the horrific smell. She became instantly disappointed, the man was dead and had been dead for some time if the puddle of wibbly wobbly chunky bits where his putrefied skin had fallen off was anything to go by.

There was a note with her name on it resting against the radio speaker that caught her eyes.

“Pardon me,” Becky mumbled to the rotten body through her cupped hand and walked around to retrieve it.

 

_Number two,_

_I really don’t want to kill your daughter but I have a feeling you might try to force my hand._

_You’re predictable and I’m ten steps ahead. Come looking for me, I double dare you._

_Let’s play,_

_Number one xoxo_

  
Becky finished reading the note with gritted teeth and tore it up there and then. It was maddening. It was infuriating. It was, above all things, the calling card of a woman who was woefully bored too.

"Your ex-wife wants to play games with me?" She looked at the festering man falling apart in the chair furiously. "It's time to play dirty."


	7. Chapter 7

When the phone buzzed in her back pocket three times succinctly, for the first time in six months, Charlotte became curious and… another emotion that she didn’t quite have the words.

That was it, she realised. _Excitement._

She remembered the feeling fondly, savouring it on a moment to moment basis as she reached into her jeans to slowly pull the phone screen into view. When she clicked the home screen and opened the camera streaming app, the weakly felt feelings vanished instantly, the space they left behind was filled with a cold and clinical kind of boredom.

She watched Becky stand there beside a decomposing body without a care in the world, brow furrowed, expression scrunched, reading the two sentences of handwriting that Charlotte had left there some months prior. When she was done she tore the letter into pieces and exhaled a deep sigh. Her eyes found the man in the chair, the man that Charlotte had robbed her of the simple pleasure of killing, and Becky said something to him that Charlotte couldn’t quite make out.

“Er…” The woman sat across the table cleared her throat. “Am I interrupting something?” She fidgeted uncomfortably and played with her long ginger hair.

“Yes,” Charlotte said pithily.

“We can rearrange?” Her tone was upbeat, the disappointment still detectable. “I haven’t been using dating websites for very long… and I’m not… I’m not really busy with much what with being so new in town?” She winced, well aware of how pathetic it all was. “Maybe we could do something next—”

“No.” Charlotte put her phone away and finally met the tacitly embarrassed brown eyes opposite. “I’ll be busy.”

“I didn’t say when?” The woman smiled politely through her humiliation, still upbeat, still hopeful for something more beyond tonight.

Charlotte got up from the table and put her jacket on, purse tucked over her shoulder, drink necked quickly. She caught the waiter’s attention with a wave of her hand and gave the universal hand gesture for the bill.

“I know.” Charlotte lifted her eyebrows at the woman, and then left just like that.

…

“You know,” Laszlo said, chewing his food. “I was hoping you called me over to tell me you’re ready to work again. I got you a new chop shop. I had the refrigerator moved for you. Your cooking is very good but…” He paused and smiled, glancing from the plate back to the disinterested woman drinking red wine at the kitchen counter. “Without murder, you and I really do have nothing.”

“My psychiatrist said I need a break from work to clear my mind.”

“Which one? They don’t seem to last very long.”

“All of them.” Charlotte shrugged and itched the back of her neck, longing for something she wasn’t sure could exist in her tiny, insulated world of violence and boredom. “Besides, you have the troublemaker on the payroll so it’s not as if there’s no one to pick up the slack.”

“You haven’t said her name in six months.” Laszlo laughed and gawked at her. “You know this, right?”

Charlotte said nothing to that. She nursed the wine in her hand and rubbed the side of her temple, and after a moment Laszlo stopped waiting for an answer, the moussaka was shovelled down by the forkful until there was nothing to annoy her last nerve but the sound of Laszlo’s slapping, gobbling mouth.

“Have you seen her?” Charlotte’s voice was full of disinterest as she asked the question.

“You know the rules. You both agreed to them.”

“I’m not asking where she is or what job she’s doing… just… whether you have seen her?” Charlotte insisted. “Did she look angry, preoccupied, maybe?”

“I’m always watching both of you, very carefully.” Laszlo eyed her sternly. “I bailed you out with the Collective at risk to myself, don’t forget that. There will be no more favours, just work.” He nodded to his plate. “And, maybe sometimes dinner.” His big red cheeks bunched into a smirk.

“I invited you over here to tell you that things might get messy, between me and her.” Charlotte got to the point. “I thought I would give you the courtesy of telling you to your face.”

“I’m well aware of the gift you left her.” Laszlo set down his cutlery. “So long as there is at least one of you left ready to work at the end of this… I’ll mind my own business and leave you both to finish your own.”

“And if there isn’t one of us left, in the end?” Charlotte smirked.

“What do you care? You would be dead too.”

“Are you a gambling man?”

“Sometimes.”

“Who would you bet on?” Charlotte’s stare lingered over him curiously.

“Eh, it could go either way.” Laszlo shrugged. “I like you both but one hitwoman is easier than two, dead women don’t cause problems or tell secrets.”

“Pragmatical, even for you.”

…

The thing that felt infuriating in Charlotte’s mind—which was the only thing she did feel between the long pangs of boredom, occasional infuriation—was that Becky was so disappointingly easy to predict.

She was at fault for that, partly, and she knew it too. She asked questions that should never have been asked. She snatched at every bit of information she could get, always thirsty for a new revelation, always hungry for a new puzzle piece. Then, when there was nothing else exciting to discover, she had nothing left but routine and predictability.

She ached for Becky to push the envelope.

She ached for something unforgivable.

Instead, Charlotte came home a month later from her first official business trip to discover flowers at the back door of the new chop shop. It was pathetic. It was underwhelming. It was, for all intents and purposes, the calling card of a woman trying to subtly gloat that she had found the address, the foreshadowing of a face to face visit, soon.

Before, when Becky did something, Charlotte always felt one-upped and impressed. Now she just felt bored; so incredibly bored that it was becoming all the more impressive on a day-to-day basis just how fucking bored she really was.

Charlotte dumped the flowers in the sink and didn’t even bother to look at the card attached to the neat black cellophane wrapping.

“Let me guess.” Charlotte rolled her eyes and looked at the bedroom door that was left cracked open a millimeter or two, hopeful for a taste of something familiar at the very least. “I’m going to walk in there and find you masturbating?” She walked over and kicked the door open.

Nothing but pristinely made bed sheets.

“Of course you’re not,” Charlotte lowered her voice and sighed.

She spent the evening neatly unpacking her clothes and hanging them back in the wardrobe, washing what needed to be wash, burning what needed to be burned in the incinerator. The guns, the knives, the toolbox of her profession, that was carefully placed back under her bed.

She had lost the joy of killing, and she wished she had the emotional spectrum to grieve for that loss on some level. It felt as though her favourite past-time had been tainted by someone else, as if every time she thought about a job she was also thinking about Becky. Boring predictable Becky, whispering insults in her ear about how she would have done one thing or another differently.

She spent two hours in the bath, drinking wine, preening, soaking, toying with the idea of whether things might become interesting again if she just got it over with and killed the troublemaker. Becky—because she was so achingly predictable—would galavant straight into a clear trap just to prove a point that Charlotte couldn’t actually kill her. Except she could. Charlotte could kill her. She could make it quick and boring too, a bullet right between the eyes, or maybe cut her throat and leave her to bleed to death, alone, cold, waiting for the other shoe to drop right to her last breath.

Eventually, Charlotte sat at the kitchen counter and ate instant noodles for dinner with a chilled glass of Dom Perignon. Thinking, not thinking, stirring the soup at the bottom, drinking a little more than she ever used to, waiting for it to be late enough to go to sleep.

Charlotte glanced at the flowers in the sink and blinked for a moment, unsure on whether she was noticing something interesting or whether she was just inserting it there herself. Except what she was seeing wasn’t interesting, it was worrisome, it was evoking a slither of emotion she wasn’t sure she had ever felt before, it was making her crave for the simpleness of boredom again.

Charlotte reached over and picked up the flowers from the sink, a selection of newly bloomed pink chrysanthemums to be precise. If Becky had gone somewhere to buy flowers she would have chose lilies, carnations, a typical white funeral flower that was symbolic of death, because she was boring and predictable. Charlotte stared at the flowers and thought about the one place she knew for certain where chrysanthemums were lovingly grown in the front garden. The one place that she hadn’t in her wildest dreams predicted Becky would ever visit.

Charlotte swallowed and opened the card.

It had been left blank.

…

Charlotte didn’t bother to call ahead, partly because she already knew what was waiting for her, and partly because she wasn’t sure she wanted the truth confirmed. In the part of her brain that understood how morality worked on a mechanical level she knew that she had brought this on herself, and that it was her cross to bear because of it.

A thing that was always going to happen, someway or somehow.

Charlotte walked calmly up the path towards her sister’s front door and rang the bell. She waited for some minutes before she pressed it again, slightly hopeful that this was a ruse, slightly hopeful that this wasn’t a line they were truly willing to cross with one another. She glanced around the front of the property to see if there were any signs of a forced entry. Of course there wasn’t. Becky didn’t have to force her way anywhere, ever, one smile was always more than enough to do the dirty work for her.

Charlotte walked around the rear of the property and swiftly kicked the lock off of the back door.

_‘Baby… I wanna keep my reputation. I'm a sensation… you try me once you'll beg for more. Oh, yes sir. I can boogie. But I need a certain song… yes sir, I can boogie! If you stay you can't go wrong, I can boogie, boogie boogie, all night long…’_

The song playing from the iPod speaker had been slowed down to three quarters of its usual speed. It was haunting, drawn out, every note dragging on and on until it was no longer a disco song but rather an elegy, a reminder that Charlotte had played with fire and this was her wound. Stupid games, stupid prizes.

Charlotte clicked it off and calmly walked over to the slumped over bodies on the sofa.

She was crying, strangely, quietly, almost as it were a secret even from herself, but she wasn’t upset in the slightest, not really at least. She was crying but on the inside there was just… nothing. It was as if her body knew what to do with the grief but her brain simply didn’t.

She bent down slightly and appraised the work. Her sister first and then the little one, although she needed a moment to gather herself in between. A bullet for each, no bruises, no marks to suggest it was a prolonged affair. Becky had simply came and went, was probably here for no longer than ten minutes all in all.

Then Charlotte felt it.

Anger, visceral untempered furious white-hot blinding maddening neverending screaming into the aether burn the world to the ground and pour the ashes in Becky’s goddamn fucking mouth until they scald her throat the entire way down anger.

She saw the note Becky had positioned inside two tiny hands and closed her eyes for a moment, daring herself not to give the insane woman the satisfaction of biting the bait. When she opened them again, she reached over and took it.

 

_Charlotte,_

 

_Who are you now they’re all gone?_

 

_Come show me._

_Becky xo_

  



	8. Chapter 8

Becky regretted it.

She had crossed the line. Because of Charlotte, with Charlotte, against Charlotte, the reasons swirled together like they always did, though none of it mattered anymore. Most of all, Becky had crossed a boundary with herself.

And she regretted what happened— _what she had done_ —to the deepest depths of the void where her soul was supposed to be. It was a tiny thing at first, barely even noticeable, but like cancer it grew and spread. It filled her from the tips of her toes to the top of her skull until there wasn’t room for anything else.

Not that Charlotte would ever hear a single word of it. This emotion, regret, it belonged to her and nobody else. It was hers alone, intrinsically connected to no one but herself, and it could never be taken away or absolved. It was horrifying, and it was humiliating, and most of all, it was _beautiful_.

 _It was all_ _hers_.

“Mammy, where are we going?”

Aoife rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and rested her tired, bouncing head on her mother’s shoulder. Her body jostled with movement as she was carried down the hill towards a waiting car in the distance of the night.

“Somewhere,” Becky murmured and held her close.

“Are we in trouble?”

“Yes,” Becky replied instantly and stared ahead with steely focus.

“Did you kill Big Girl?” Aoife whispered, full of concern.

“Don’t you worry about that…” Becky swallowed and glanced at the daughter she was never proficient at loving. “It’s on my to-do list,” she whispered with a quirk of her mouth.

Becky would see this through to the end, she knew she was too far gone to do anything else. And it didn’t go amiss that it was probably going to cost her life but even that didn’t frighten her, not really. There was something addictive about feeling things, even terrible feelings that seemed to serve no purpose but to burden and incumber. All of it, every moment, every pang of regret, every tiny knot of fear, it was all so vibrant and… _awe striking._

It was becoming a dance with death, a dance that she and Charlotte Flair would be entangled together in until the very end; pushing one another towards boundaries that should never be crossed; performing violent acts for fleeting tastes of emotions neither were proficient in handling. Truth be told, the thought of one of them dying at the other’s hand felt both inevitable and exciting, and the day it finally would happen was nearly on the brink of itself.

Becky could sense that the pieces were finally falling into place.

“Ma.” Aoife shifted her eyes between her mother and the silent man at the steering wheel as she was bundled into the back of the waiting car. “Are you coming?” She looked back at her expectantly.

Becky paused for a moment and inhaled deeply.

“No, Aoife.” She swallowed calmly. “You’re going somewhere safe, somewhere even I won’t be able to find you.”

“But…” The little girl came undone, blinking and unable to process it. “Does this… does this mean I won’t see you again?” Her heart visibly broke in two.

Becky crouched down and stared into her daughter’s eyes.

“You deserve more than this place, you deserve more than being mine. I don’t know who I am anymore or what I’m willing to risk to find out the answers, but I know that I can’t risk you.” Her tone was measured and cool. “One day when you’re big enough to handle yourself, you call Big Girl and ask her to tell you how it all ended. Who knows, maybe I’ll be the one to answer the phone.” Becky ruffled her hair and closed the car door.

Becky watched the car pull away with her daughter inside, crying and drumming the passenger window, and she felt nothing but relief. She sighed and watched the two headlamps pull away and drive around the winding roads down the hill until they grew smaller and smaller, then finally out of sight.

Becky stood there in the cool night chill and closed her eyes. Completely out of her element, completely unsure of whether she was the huntress or the little beast of Wicklow anymore.

Like perfect clockwork, she felt her phone buzz in her back pocket.

 

_The Little White Chapel.  Tuesday, 1:00am local time._

_Don’t make me come looking for you,_

_Charlotte._

  



	9. Chapter 9

“My god. Only you could…” Charlotte rolled her eyes.

The troublemaker turned over her shoulder from the front pew of the cheap, glittering chapel with that stupid look on her face. She was wearing a wedding dress, chantilly lace veil barely concealing the unfeeling smirk riding up her cheeks. The cut of the gown slipped loosely around her shoulders and deep into her cleavage. Creamy skin on show, beaming white teeth pulled into a grin, ginger hair coiffed into curls and held perfectly in place, and the bouquet in her hands consisted of gorgeous pink Chrysanthemums, all of it was unsurprising and utterly predictable. Becky would indeed have made a beautiful bride, Charlotte decided to give her that much credit. Maybe in another life, if they were other people.

“Hello Charlotte,” Becky whispered and stood up, deft hands smoothing the creases out of her gown.

“Hello,” Charlotte replied, coolly. “It’s been a while.”

“Missed you.”

“Mmhm. You too.” Charlotte walked forward slowly down the empty aisle. “Question game? One last time before we do this?” She looked around and dug her hands in her jean pockets.

“For old time’s sake, sure.”

“Why did you do it, Becky?” The blonde piqued one of her eyebrows and shook her head in exaggerated disapproval.

“Do what?” Becky blinked.

“Baby killer,” Charlotte sneered.

“Oh… that. You know I love it when you give me pet names, my love.”

“Why did you do it?” Charlotte punched out the words.

Becky sighed and pulled her veil back, a pout forming in her plump lips.

“Because I could. Because I wanted to.” She shrugged. “I guess… you can never really know a person until you do something truly, unforgivable.” Becky pushed a weak smile. “Either way, I’m a part of you forever now. I’m the inevitable place you will  _ always _ come back to.”

“Bold of you to assume that we’re both walking out of here alive.” Charlotte blinked and stopped walking, their distance maybe two arm lengths apart. “I thought you were inevitable, once, but now I think you were just my most elaborate form of self-harm.”

“That’s poetic, baby.” Becky nodded with a sarcastic smile. “Why did you lie and say you were married? I dug around a little more after your little stunt at the duplex. Your husband James? He never existed, did he?”

Charlotte hesitated for a moment, a smile finally pushing up her cheeks as she closed her eyes and conceded that she had been lying, if only just that once. She opened them again and glanced to the opposite row of pews, and she gingerly walked over and sat herself down.

“I guess I wanted you to think I had a weakness, maybe.” Charlotte huffed and eyed the pulpit at the end of the chapel. “I thought it might be an insurance policy. If you thought I had something worth taking… it meant keeping you around, watching you chase your tail, right in the palm of my hand.”

“I guess that backfired on you.” Becky snorted a boisterous laugh.

“Is that why you killed them?” Charlotte asked again with a serious look.

“Maybe a tiny bit for that too, yes.” Becky sat herself down on the opposite row of pews, they both looked ahead to the front of the dimly lit chapel. “Do you think we were destined to end up here from the very beginning, or could we have took a different path?” Becky turned and looked at her.

“Are you asking me if there’s an alternate universe where we quit our degenerate lives and stayed in Belize?” Charlotte smirked.

“Maybe.”

“Then maybe,” Charlotte answered indecisively.

“Is it too late to try again?” Becky asked softly, and Charlotte almost wanted to give in.

“Yes,” Charlotte hissed.

Almost just wasn’t enough this time.

Becky straightened her posture and swallowed hard, teeth grinding against one another ever so slightly. Charlotte watched, she watched longingly and wanted to scream from the top of her lungs, “I love you. I love you, still, still, still.”

She swallowed it back like vomit.

“Wow.” Becky laughed to herself in disbelief. “There really is only going to be one of us walking out of here tonight then?” She seemed saddened by the finality of it.

“I guess so. Word of advice, if it’s you who survives then stay on your toes. Laszlo has a habit of putting employees in shallow graves when the police start looking around and asking questions. You’re not exactly discrete, Becky.”

“Look at you,” Becky whispered in amazement. “Taking care of me right till the very end, huh?”

“Like I said, you’re not exactly discrete. Just ask the two senators in Manila or, you know, the other two-hundred and seventy-nine people on your list.” Charlotte couldn’t help but smirk at how impressive the number was.

“I am very, very good at killing people. You? Laszlo? You’re all just fixed moments in time, inevitable little murders waiting to happen. I think that’s how I show love, Charlotte. I think that’s who I am…” Becky came undone with a strange, rabid look in her eyes. “I adore you, Charlotte, I adore you and killing you is the only way I think I’ll ever be able to make you understand.”

“Then baby, put your best foot forward.” Charlotte stood up and pulled her knife.

“Mhm.” Becky’s eyes glimmered and glittered mischievously. “Come dance with the bride.” She pulled a switch blade.

Raucous and playful, it wouldn’t have been surprising to either of them if the wedding band emerged and began to play. They circled one another, gently, tenderly, like lovers waltzing, like the haughtiness and innuendos and tit-for-tat murders had all been leading to this. Charlotte had never felt so alive and thrumming with feeling, right here, right now, staring down death in a bridal gown.

Becky glimmered and glittered, laughing and wild, terrifying and untameable, unrepentant and so beautiful because of it. Charlotte couldn’t help but laugh too, each of them staring down the wrong end of a mad woman with a knife. Charlotte laughed and laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world, as if, finally, after all this time, she was not just in on the joke but was writing the final punch line.

Charlotte turned her knife and drove it into her own gut again and again and again and again. It stole the breath from her lungs, the air pouring out of the puncture wounds from her gut where the blood began to gush and drip down her perfectly crisp white shirt until she couldn’t catch a breath. She drove the knife into herself so deep and hard that her tiny, insulated world of boredom burst open into colours and feelings and vibrant emotions she never knew existed.

“I. I. I win.” Charlotte gasped with laughter and slumped to her knees, wide eyed and beaming, so gloriously happy that it felt as though she was suddenly catching up on the thirty years spent without it. “I win!” She dropped the knife and clutched her wounds, grinning and pearl eyed.

Becky stood there, suddenly blank faced, empty, unsure of herself, shocked and hating the fact. She stood there and blinked, her smile tapering into a horrified, confused stare. She lowered her knife. She dropped to her knees at Charlotte’s side, muttering little nothings to herself, brow furrowing, so fucking confused that the sight added to Charlotte’s new found joy. Carefully, her hand found the small of Charlotte’s spine while her other touched the gushing wounds.

“Oh my darling girl,” Becky whispered with a tinge of surprise to her voice, her eyes glazing with disappointment. “Was this the best you had up your sleeve?” She lovingly tucked a rope of blonde hair behind Charlotte’s ear and rocked her.

Charlotte took tiny, sharp, frequent breaths and simply grinned.

“You win nothing, my love.” Becky shook her head and quirked the corner of her mouth. “I still took everything from you,  _ you’re still mine, _ this means nothing,” she whispered against her ear tenderly and held her close.

“Ca...careful. You’re… getting blood on your lovely dress…” Charlotte grinned and bled quietly.

“I wore it for you, what does it matter?” Becky pushed half a smile. “Can you forgive me for not being impressed?”

“You… You don’t know the best part…” Charlotte gasped and tapped one of the buttons on her shirt.

Becky leaned back and narrowed her stare slightly.

“Am I going to find a bomb under there?” Becky smirked. “It would really turn things around if I did.”

The tiny, gasping breaths punched the air sharply and quickly, and Charlotte couldn’t get words out between them.

“Well alright,” Becky whispered and undid her buttons one by one. “I’ll humor you, baby, for old time’s sake—” Becky quickly grew quiet the moment she saw the microphone and battery pack. “You’re wearing a wire.” Becky closed her eyes.

“Did you think I was that small… that ordinary… that I would kill you, baby?” Charlotte halted and swallowed, her lung filling up with blood. “I took a deal… they offered me twenty-five years if I gave them you and Laszlo. They’re… they’re going to put you in a tiny, empty concrete box for the rest of your life.” The Queen hissed and laughed so hard that it quickened her injuries.

Charlotte watched the colour drain from her little troublemaker’s face.

“You’re lying. Why would you… why would you do this if you took a deal?” Becky hissed and looked back down to the stab wounds.

“You think I’m spending twenty-five years in a Supermax for you?” Charlotte giggled. “No more killing, no more freedom, no more attention, no more anything, I’ve taken everything from you—”  The sound of tear gas canisters being thrown into the chapel echoed sharply around the steeple. 

“What have you done, Charlotte?” Becky became utterly horrified as her world closed in around her.

“You wanted to know who I am, remember? Well here it is, baby.” Charlotte pulled her close and kissed the horrified face between her hands as hard as she could, the chemical smoke piling up and devouring them with the fumes. “May you live forever, Becky Lynch," she weakly whispered into the troublemaker's tongue.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, there's an epilogue after this and then I'm really, really, really, really done. For real, this time.
> 
> @TheRougeFatal this chapter is a love letter to you, your reviews have inspired me and made me feel so deeply appreciated as a writer. I'm sorry if it isn't the love letter you want, but I think it's one you will enjoy.
> 
> Everyone, if you want a soft epilogue for these two psychopaths I suggest you jump on the review wagon because Mama is about to bring this train into the station for last call.

Charlotte was alive.

She had to be. She just _had_ to be alive. Becky refused to believe otherwise, from the moment the handcuffs went on at the chapel and then for an eighteen month interim afterwards until the close of her sentencing.

It was how Becky ordered her day and kept track of the time in solitary confinement, waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for that maddening fucking woman to reappear and somehow undo all of this. Truth be told, Becky felt she would settle just for seeing that lone, tall figure cut through the courtroom to take the witness stand.

At least then she would know for certain she had been playing possum.

Thirteen concurrent life sentences and five-hundred and seventy nine years to boot, all to be served in Florence Supermax, home to those would never see home again. That was what they threw at her in the end. Not just the book, but the whole damn library. The Irish consulate didn’t even file for repatriation, and they wouldn’t have been granted it had they tried. The judge looked up and wryly smiled, deducting two years from her sentence for time served with a jot of his pen.

 _Hysterical,_ Becky thought to herself, still half-believing there was a blonde woman in a 1970 Dodge Charger waiting for her outside the courthouse.

 

…

 

When she arrived at the facility and saw her cell for the first time, Becky couldn’t help but scoff in disbelief. They removed her blindfold, a cautionary measure to prevent the inmates from learning the structure of the prison, and then she saw what looked like a huge, bank vault door to the immediate exterior of the cell. There was a two foot gap, and then a set of bars, and beyond the bars was her room. All eight feet by eight feet of it was insipid concrete grey, no natural light, not a single sound other than her own breath. There was a toilet with a sink basin built into the top, a concrete bed with a flimsy mat that she was supposed to sleep on, and a concrete desk with two pieces of paper and one felt tip pen… and that was it.

“Welcome to the rest of your life,” the guard sneered and nudged her inside.

“I don’t think so.” Becky remained cool as they locked the first cage door behind her. “She’ll come for me, oh she thinks she’s a real slick rick but I’d be careful if I were you. She _always_ comes back for me, and people usually die when she does.” Becky grinned as the big door to the rest of the world closed shut, deeply believing the saviour would come.

She had to come.

…

 

Two years passed.

Becky was beginning to lose hope, but then for the first time in six-hundred and ninety-eight days a single postcard arrived for her during mail call.

She turned it over in her hands and savoured the colours on the front, the big bright font, each letter that strung together to spell out the word, _Belize._

She was alive.

Becky turned the postcard over in her hands.

 

_Are you suffering? Do you think of me often? I wish I could have been there to see your face when the gavel fell…_

_I always loved the way you described that feeling._

_I always loved toying with you._

 

Becky saw the date stamp on the postcard, it had been written three weeks before the last night they had ever saw one another. She closed her eyes and grinded her jaw. It was a rouse, she told herself.

Charlotte was alive, she had to be.

 

…

“415641, you have a visitor.” The guard was thin-lipped and uninterested with Prisoner #415641’s shenanigans as he pulled out a set of handcuffs to transport her in.

That was who she was now. What she was, even. The last eight years filled with nothing but the sound of her own breath had molded her that way. On her best days she clung on to the memory of what it meant to be above the world. Most days, Becky was trapped and suffocating beneath it. She showered when someone decided she was allowed to shower. She ate when they decided it was time for her to eat, and if she didn’t, which she had tried some years ago, the doctor came with an entire riot squad of prison guards and saw to it with a feeding tube. Even down to her sleeping habits, that was all decided for her too. The fluorescent lights woke her up at what she presumed was dawn, they switched off around sixteen hours later. If she had been naughty and tried to mess with one of the guards during her one hour of solitary courtyard time then the lights stayed on for an entire week until her next approved courtyard time.

She learned to behave the hard way, and god did she fight it until she just couldn’t fight it anymore.

“Who’s my visitor?” Becky swallowed and reluctantly allowed the blindfold to go over her head, hopeful that if she didn’t cause too much trouble then a familiar face might be the next thing she saw before some grand, unbelievable escape.

“A woman, I didn’t catch her name.” Becky perked up at that. “The unit commander has the paperwork, you’ll have fifteen minutes with her in the visitation room.” He pushed the trudging prisoner along the hallway.

“Was she gorgeous?” Becky murmured with a slight smile underneath the dark bag over her head, convinced this was finally what she had been waiting for.

“Well I wouldn’t kick her out of bed for farting, let’s put it that way.”

“Let’s not.” Becky soured as a truncheon pressed into the lower portion of her spine.

There was a buzz every time they passed through a secured door, each one a checkpoint where she would be stopped and patted down to make sure she wasn’t concealing anything. When she passed through the eighth buzzing door, her blindfold was removed and she was ushered into a holding room. Becky didn’t know what to expect from the procedure, ten years of incarceration and this was her _first_ visitor.

“Clothes off, legs spread, hands against the wall.” The unit commander ordered from out of sight. “Are you concealing anything that could hurt me or yourself?” The voice was low and quiet over her shoulder, sultry maybe.

Becky closed her eyes and recognised that voice clear as day.

“I’ve never been very good at concealing the things I want to hurt you with,” Becky whispered beneath her breath with a slow pushing smile.

“What did you just say to me?” A strong hand grabbed her shoulder and span Becky around to face them.

Becky blinked and stared at the slender, short, middle-aged brunette woman in her black prison guard uniform. Becky blinked rapidly for a moment and swallowed her dry mouth, opening and closing it awkwardly. She was starting to lose touch with reality, she realised uncomfortably.

“I said nothing, I’m sorry.” Becky closed her eyes and hated the way the apology tasted in her mouth.

The unit commander stared down her nostrils expectantly.

“Sorry…what?”

Becky couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“I’m waiting.” The unit commander prodded her chest. “Or you can go back to your shit hole if you prefer? I don’t care either way.”

“I’m sorry, _ma’am_.” Becky’s throat tightened around the courtesy.

“Much better.” The guard pushed a smile and pulled on a blue latex glove.

Afterwards, when her orange uniform went back on, the handcuffs re-tightened and attached to a steel chain around her waist, she limped gaited steps into the empty visitor room with a guard either side flanking her. Becky wanted to say something pithy, something arrogant and funny if only to make herself laugh, but she stayed quiet as a mouse, aware if she did that she would be hauled back to her tiny concrete world where the only thing that existed was the sound of her own breath.

It was humiliating. It was worse than hell. Charlotte had won, hands down, she had won, and Becky craved to be able to scream it at her if it meant making the misery come to an end.

The visitor door buzzed. A woman finally strode through the other door with a slight skip to her walk, she sat herself down at the table with her beige coat folded neatly on top of her purse. There was a look in her eye, as if she wanted to say, ‘I told you so,’ but felt above gloating about it.

Becky closed her eyes and felt nothing but blinding, palpating, indescribable anger for being stupid enough to get her hopes up.

“Alright Mammy?” The young, ginger-haired woman at the table nodded at her with a smirk.

They looked identical to one another, Becky knew as much too. Her daughter had the same hair, the same jawline, the same teeth, the only thing that was different were her eyes, they were all her father’s work. In fact making Aoife was probably the only honest work either of them had ever managed between them. Their best work, maybe.

“God, you look like me.” Becky huffed slightly, unsure of what she was feeling. “You must be what? Nineteen now?” She did the math and stared at her grown-up daughter.

Aoife paused and looked her mother up and down, her chin protruding ever so slightly as if she were grinding her teeth in thought. She stopped and swallowed, reclaiming herself with an airy, calm smile.

“Maybe when you were younger.” The corner of Aoife’s mouth quirked. “You just look old now, Ma.”

“I wouldn’t know, love. I don’t have a mirror.” Becky shrugged.

“Best it stays that way.”

“Catty of you.” Becky rubbed the back of her neck and stared deeply into her daughter’s eyes. “It must be ten years since—”

“Did you ever love me?” Aoife interrupted with a severe glare. “I think about that a lot. I don’t know whether you loved me or whether Grandma and Charlotte were right and you just… loved how much I loved you?” Her face screwed up slightly in repulsion. “I’m not here for a reunion, I just wanted to ask you that.”

Becky leaned back and remained pursed lipped.

“I loved you in the ways I knew how to love you,” she said, slightly hurried, hoping to get something more out of this encounter. “Did anybody ever find you? Did anybody ever answer the phone?” Becky clung to a tiny ember of hope that maybe her daughter knew something that she didn’t.

“Are you asking me if Big Girl is alive, Ma?” Aoife raised her brows.

“Well, since you brought it up?” Becky leaned forward.

Aoife sat there for what felt like forever, not saying anything, drawing it out, every inch of it purposeful, but eventually her scowl pushed into a slight smile. She fluttered her eyes closed and rubbed her temple, sighing again.

“I best be going, Ma.”

“Don’t you dare!” Becky shot up and wanted to smack her. “You know something. I know you know something!”

“Hmm.” Aoife paused and looked her up and down. “And god, it must eat you up inside.” The little troublemaker narrowed her stare as she pushed an envelope across the table towards her mother. “Goodbye, Becky.” Aoife turned on her feet.

“Aoife, wait!” Becky called out and her daughter’s steps paused. “I loved you. I loved you and I love you and it terrifies me as much now as it did then. It wasn’t much, it still isn’t much, but I love you in my own way and that was why I sent you away. I couldn’t let her hurt you.” She shook her head gravely and let it pour out of her chest.

“Couldn’t let her hurt me?” Aoife turned and blinked, her eyes somehow full of repulsion and forgiveness, simultaneously. “Or do you mean that you couldn’t let her hurt you the way you hurt her?”

Becky paused.

“Both,” she whispered.

…

She held out for three weeks before opening the envelope.

She held out for no reason other than having something to look forward to.

Inside, there was nothing but a single school photograph. It was ten years old, dated the week prior to the last night she had ever seen Charlotte Flair. In the picture, Aoife, still tiny, stood proud and upright with a certificate during one of her school assemblies that Becky never found the time to go to.

Charlotte was sat in the front row watching proudly.

Becky turned the photograph over and looked at the scrawl written on the back, it was Charlotte’s handwriting alright.

 

 

_If you’re reading this Aoife then my contact found you._

_My, you’re a great kid. Granted, I’m not a great judge. Other than you I only knew one other great kid in my life. I miss her sometimes. Now and then. Granted, I’m not the best at grieving. To be honest I think you and Emily would have liked each other a lot._

_Or maybe I’m just… imagining what it would have been like if things went differently?_

_Khmer Rung, Cambodia. It was one of the last places I stayed with your mother. Loving each other. Loving ourselves, mostly. You should go there if you ever want to feel close to her without having to be close to her. Or, maybe you’ll go there to feel close to me. Understand this, you meant something to me. Right or wrong, it’s okay if I meant something to you too._

_Do you miss your mother? All the time I ask myself that. Utterly and totally, I feel terrible for taking her away from you. Given your breeding I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt inclined, one day, to find out first-hand what her life during the heydays was like. Honestly, part of me hopes you do. The fun is indescribable, the naughtiness of it was what we both liked the best._

_Even now I miss her, all while I’m busy hating her._

_Remember us both, Aoife, maybe then we can happily exist somewhere together._

 

Becky clenched her teeth and put the picture down on the tiny concrete desk, partly at the taunting, and partly at the thought of her daughter taking up the family graft at Charlotte’s manipulation. The two were deeply connected, Becky knew it. Charlotte wanted Aoife to be like them. Becky just didn’t understand why.

Charlotte had to be alive, she **had** to be.

 

…

 

The ninth time Becky wrote and asked Aoife to visit, she was convinced the request would be ignored the same as the others. Four years had passed and still she waited for Charlotte, waited for Aoife, waited for anyone who might know anything, mainly because there was nothing else to do but listen to the sound of her own breaths. Twenty-thousand six-hundred and ninety-seven of them a day, give or take.

But then one day the guard appeared at her cell door with handcuffs in tow. “415641, you have a visitor.” The words made her buzz with excitement.

Once the endless buzzing doors and deeply personal procedures were completed, Aoife was already sat at the little stainless steel table waiting for her.

“I can see it in your eyes already,” Becky swallowed and stepped forward in chains, appraising her daughter. “She got to you.”

Aoife was twenty-four now, give or take. Becky tried her hardest not to think about how old that made her. Though Aoife sat there like a woman well into her thirties, as if she knew everything, as if she had seen things that would make the angels shrivel and turn away in horror. The woman sat at the table was wise beyond her years, cocky about it too, the same way Becky was after she first began killing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mammy.” Aoife’s smile glimmered mischievously. “I’ve been good as gold.”

“Is that so?” Becky scoffed and sat down at the table.

“Tell me you aren’t a little bit proud?” The young woman’s eyes glittered and glimmered, bursting with excitement, with a deeply profound sense of calm as if she had found the thing she was best at in the world. “They say I’m better than you, not as show-offy.” Aoife shrugged slightly and rested her clasped hands on the table.

Becky glanced down and looked at the gold Rolex hanging loosely on her wrist.

“Well.” Becky blinked and held back something that faintly felt like jealousy, maybe just sadness that all of this was coming to pass while she was forced to watch on through the occasional letter. “You didn’t get a watch like that on a policewoman’s salary.” Becky swallowed deeply.

“No, I didn’t,” Aoife replied.

“You don’t have to do any of it, Aoife.” Becky pushed forward and lowered her voice to a near whisper, a sense of frantic urgency creeping up her spine. “There’s money tucked away, money I’ll never get to use. You should take it and go live your life. Don’t… don’t play into her hand, she is orchestrating every moment of this.”

“She managed to be more of a mother to me in two letters beyond the grave than you have been my entire life!” Aoife snapped with glaring eyes. “Don’t you pretend for a second that you know me, Mammy, because you don’t and you never have.”

It took Becky aback.

“She isn’t your mother, Aoife.” Her eyes fixed sternly. “I know Charlotte Flair in ways you couldn’t dream of. I know the look she gets in her eyes after she’s been stabbed, just like she knows the look in mine. You can’t know a person until you have done terrible, unforgivable things to them and I am telling you… I _know_ Charlotte Flair. I know who and what we made of each other. Take my money and go live a life worth having.” Becky emphasised with a serious, deep stare. “Go and be boring like I always thought you were, this game doesn’t suit you.”

“You know prison makes a poet out of you, Mammy.” Aoife giggled slightly.

“Do you enjoy it, the job?” Becky tilted her head and wondered if they were just as similar on the inside as they were on the outside. She glanced around and swallowed, making sure the guards weren’t listening. “Do you like the way it feels watching things die?”

Aoife blinked, her face expressionless and calm.

“I like how powerful it makes me feel. I like the money, the adventure, the way their eyes get so teeny-tiny when they realise what’s happening to them.” Aoife swallowed and paused, her teeth nibbling the corner of her lip. “Charlotte was right. I feel closer to you now than I ever did.”

“What do you mean Charlotte was right?” Becky tilted her head slightly. “Is she… is she alive?” She blinked and hated how hopeful she felt.

Aoife produced a letter out of her jacket pocket and slid it across the table.

“I’ve got business to attend in Cambodia.” Aoife stood up straight and brushed herself down. “Moscow after that and then Berlin. I’ll be gone awhile but I’ll come see you when I’m back this side of the Atlantic. I miss our chats, Ma.” Aoife glanced her mother up and down. “You look jealous, you know that?”

“Probably because I am,” Becky whispered and took the envelope in her hand. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“I’ll bring you back a souvenir from Cambodia, I know you and Charlotte liked it there.” Aoife smirked. “Goodbye, Becky.”

“Goodbye, Aoife.”

 

…

 

She waited for three months before she opened the letter that had been given to her. A blank postcard came during mail call, a picture of Cambodia on the front. Becky took it that her daughter was out there somewhere, dancing with fire but otherwise unscathed.

Becky glanced at the unread letter resting on her desk and decided today was a good day to get it out of the way.

 

_If you’re reading this then happy 21st birthday, Aoife._

_My, at the time of me writing this you’re no older than ten years old. Wow, this is kind of cool, past me and future you meeting in the middle of these words. And still I can’t help but think about your mother. It plagues me, Aoife. Then I remember you might be the only other person in the world who knows what that feels like. I feel less lonely then. No, less bitter. Granted, I’ll never be rainbows and sunshine the way she is._

_Ultimately, I guess I hope you’re like her in all the best ways while skipping over all the worst. Now I know that’s a selfish thing to ask of someone. To be honest, it’s not much of a birthday present either. It is however pretty solid advice. Life will teach you how to live it, you just have to ride it out for long enough._

_So, here it is. Happy birthday. Every year you’re going to get a little more like her and little further away too, and that’s okay. It really is. Someday you’ll be okay with being her daughter._

_The most important thing is that you spend your life doing something that makes you feel alive. Right now, you’re at that age where you need excitement and adventure. And I think you know where to find it. Neither me or your mother expected to find each other but god, it was worth having, it was something that made us both feel alive, and I wish that for you._

_Emily would almost be an adult by the time you read this, I’ve just realised that, and I know without a shadow of a doubt she would have been adventurous and wild like you. Do all of it twice over, enough for her too please._

 

Becky placed the letter back down and didn’t feel any better for having read it, or any closer to a decisive answer for that matter at what Charlotte’s angle was exactly. She knew one thing, a fact that had rattled inside of her for the last fourteen years.

Charlotte Flair was alive, somewhere out there. And whatever she was planning, Becky knew that it would make her hurt in ways she hadn’t felt in years.

 

…

 

“You came back!” Becky burst through buzzing door into the visitation room, her restraints jangling and clanking together as she shuffled towards the table. “Oh goodness, you came back.” She breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t pretend you were worried about me. It doesn’t suit you,” Aoife snarked.

“You’ve been gone for six years! I thought… I thought…” Becky came undone and didn’t know what to say.

“You thought she got me?” Aoife smirked.

Becky didn’t reply.

“It’s never simple with you, is it? It’s not even the thought of me getting hurt. It’s the thought of her one-upping you that gets you tangled in knots.” Aoife scoffed in disbelief.

“I might be a clinical psychopath but I am still your mother and unless you want to be shitting chain links for the next fortnight I suggest you watch your tone.” Becky lifted her chained hands.

Suddenly, for the briefest of moments, her daughter was eight years old again. All wide-eyes and gulping throat. It passed, the little troublemaker forced it away with a hard swallow and sat upright.

“Well I’m here now,” Aoife whispered and tucked a rope of ginger hair behind her ear.

God, Aoife was _thirty_ now, it dawned on Becky a bit too suddenly. It was like looking into a mirror. Aoife was around the same age that Becky was when everything changed, if not a little older.

“You’re here now,” Becky agreed with a sigh. “Where were you for the last six years?”

“Working, mostly.” Aoife blinked and paused, as if there was something she needed to say but didn’t know how. “Things got complicated the last two years or so… something… came up.”

“Something came up?” Becky’s eyebrow piqued.

“Listen, Ma, there’s something I have to tell you.”

“Did you have a baby?”

“God no.” Aoife rolled her eyes in disbelief.

“Have you killed someone?”

“Ma.” Aoife glanced at her seriously. “Really?”

“Sorry, forgot myself for a moment.” Becky remembered what her little troublemaker did for a living.

“Mammy…” Aoife took a picture out of her pocket and pushed it across the steel table. “I saw her.”

“Saw who?”

Becky felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and didn’t dare look at the picture. Instead, she froze and stared at the young woman who looked too much like her and acted too much like her for any of it to be a simple coincidence.

“Her.” Aoife emphasised and tapped the photograph. “I’ve seen her, more than once too.”

Becky blinked rapidly and swallowed hard, finally glancing down at the picture. And there it was. Twenty years of suspicions, all confirmed in one grainy photograph.

Charlotte looked older now, but not in a terrible way. Her wrinkles were light and gentle on her face, blue eyes still as vibrant as they ever were, and she still had that same indescribable vibe about her. In the photograph she was leaning over the edge of a balcony, cigarette between her lips, platinum blonde hair pulled up into a loose bun. Maybe she even looked cooler now, Becky thought to herself, her heart beating a thousand miles an hour.

“Aoife.” The words suddenly dried up on Becky’s tongue as reality snapped her back to the present. “This picture. Charlotte _wanted_ you to have it. She would never be stupid enough to get caught out like this, she’s the Queen of Shadows for a reason. It’s time to stop and do something honest with your life,” Becky warned severely. “She has designed every moment of this, I know it.”

“Do you really believe she planned all of this?” Aoife smirked.

“I know she did.”

“You know her better than anyone. What do you think she’s getting at? If she wanted to kill me why not do it when I was a child, it’s not as if you spared her that pain?” The words induced a twenty year old guilt on Becky’s stomach. “Maybe whatever game she’s playing, it’s time for a Lynch to win.”

“Don’t you dare.” Becky’s spine stiffened.

“She put you away, Ma.” Aoife reached over the table and put her fingers over Becky’s knuckles.

God, Becky didn’t even realise how long it had been since someone touched her for any other reason than making sure she wasn’t carrying a weapon.

“You deserved it, no doubt,” Aoife continued, a little fire still in her eyes. “But you’re still my mother. You were supposed to be mine and she took you away from me.”

“I’m all yours,” Becky burst suddenly. “If that’s what you want, if that’s what you need. Just, please don’t try and finish this game with her. It’s not worth the things it will cost you. You want a Mammy to play house with you? Come and see me every weekend, I’m not going anywhere, just please stop this before it’s too late.”

“I think it’s already too late for that, Ma.” Aoife pulled a letter out of her leather jacket and pushed it across the table.

Always those fucking letters, Becky thought to herself.

“I’m going to finish something you started all those years ago.” There was a twinkle in Aoife’s eyes. “She’s still keen on you, you know. I don’t know what else you did to that woman but she just can’t let you go.”

“I took everything else from her, Aoife.” Becky paused and swallowed. “Punishing me is all she has left.”

 

…

 

Despite knowing better, despite knowing there was nothing she could do, Becky opened the letter as soon as she got back to her cell. Aoife had explained that the letter was waiting in her hotel room some months ago in Paris. That she had gone there in the first place on Charlotte’s tail, determined to prove her existence, but lost her in a crowd south of the Notre Dame. Aoife said she returned to find it waiting for her on the hotel table with a bunch of pink flowers wrapped in black cellophane.

Becky didn’t bother to tell her daughter just how crucial that part was. It was a fear she kept entirely to herself.

 

_Do you want to know something really worth knowing, Aoife?_

_Oh god, it’s stupid. Even now, all these years later, I can’t help but laugh. So, there’s this old disco song. It’s called Yes Sir I Can Boogie by Baccara. The song was mine and your mother’s anthem for want of a better word. Honestly, she probably still listens to it when she misses me. Unless they don’t get iPods in prison, in which case she probably hums it to herself the way she used to._

_Remember that? The way Becky used to hum along incessantly to songs stuck in her head, god I miss that._

_Basically, what I’m trying to say is that you’re how old now? Encroaching on thirty? Chances are you have either met someone or are ready to meet someone. Khmer Rung, Cambodia, would be an excellent honeymoon spot if you already have, but assuming you haven’t…_

_You make sure you meet the kind of man or woman that you could spend the rest of your life dancing with to a song like that, and you quit now while you’re ahead._

 

…

 

Six months passed.

Becky heard nothing from her daughter.

 

…

 

Nine months passed.

Nothing.

 

…

 

A year, and still nothing.

It was becoming a new and inventive kind of torture.

 

…

 

On her fiftieth birthday, a single card in a pink envelope arrived at mail call. There was no mistaking who the handwriting scrawled on the front belonged too, and it certainly wasn’t her daughter.

She opened the envelope and pulled out the card, the Irish curve of her lips quirking into an instinctive smile as she began to read the lengthy message written inside.

 

_And so time went and passed us by, my love._

_Oh, my girl. If only you knew how much I have thought about you, every moment, every second, every bit of it, it’s all been you. Filled with you. Everything you._

_Is it rude to hope you have thought of me too?_

_Sometimes I think so, I know what I did to you was unforgivable, then again that’s what you and I are best at doing to one another._

_Do you remember what you said to me? Echoing around my mind I hear it as clear today as I did all those years ago… that you can never truly know someone until you do something unforgivable to them. And you were right, Becky, you can’t know someone until you’ve hurt them in indescribable ways._

_Do you and I know one another, now?_

 

_Charlotte xo_

 

Becky burst with feelings that hadn’t been felt in years. God, she was still in love. She was so in love. She loved that woman, loved her and loved her and loved her to death. She wanted to crawl inside the card, crawl inside those words and bathe in them. Charlotte was alive. Charlotte had been alive this entire time, thinking about her. It made Becky burst with laughter and instantly forgive the last twenty-three years.

But then Becky saw the back of the card, the little message that had been scrawled on the rear like an afterthought of sorts.

 

 _(It was always going to be like this, Becky. You can’t say I didn’t give you plenty of warning. You should go back and read between the lines._ _After all, living between the lines is where you and I always used to have the most fun.)_

 

A cold shiver slipped down Becky’s spine. She threw the card down and dove to the meagre book case were she kept the letters and photographs, all of them pulled out and ordered by date stamp, sprawled out on the desk and stared at it intently. What was she missing? What hadn’t she seen? What had Charlotte been planning this entire time?

Becky swallowed and looked at the rhythm of the wording in each of Charlotte’s letters. To begin with, she looked for a alphabetical code to decipher a hidden message in the structuring of the words, although there was none. Then, she looked to see if there was a connection between the letters. She read each of the first words on each page aloud, although none of it made sense.

She sat there for hours, pouring over the same letters she had learned off by heart for the last twenty-three years. She sat there and she didn’t move. She couldn’t move. She was a puppet, a plaything, a fiddle that had been fine tuned for the last two decades in this shithole tomb of concrete and breath.

Oh god.

Oh dear god.

Becky’s eyes darted across each note, across the first letter of each sentence, and that was when she finally saw it sat there plain as day. It had been there for twenty-three years. It had been there from the very beginning. She could have noticed it. She had all the time in the world to notice it. Why didn’t she fucking notice it? Becky clenched her eyes closed and screamed a noise that was inhuman and foul, like a tormented lamb finally being lead to slaughter on its braced and bleeding knees.

One way or another, she was escaping this prison. Becky decided it with every fibre of her being as the rage and pain pulsated through her like a fire tearing through a gutted building.

This was beyond any despicable evil she had ever witnessed.

…

 

**_I_ ** _ f you’re reading this Aoife then my contact found you. _

 

**_M_ ** _ y, you’re a great kid.  _ **_G_ ** _ ranted, I’m not a great judge.  _ **_O_ ** _ ther than you I only knew one other great kid in my life.  _ **_I_ ** _ miss her, sometimes.  _ **_N_ ** _ ow and then.  _ **_G_ ** _ ranted, it’s nice to feel something even if it does hurt.  _ **_T_ ** _ o be honest, I think you and Emily would have liked each other a lot. _

 

**_O_ ** _ r maybe I’m just imagining what it would have been like if things went differently. _

 

**_K_ ** _ hmer Rung, Cambodia.  _ **_I_ ** _ t was one of the last places I stayed with your mother.  _ **_L_ ** _ oving each other.  _ **_L_ ** _ oving ourselves, mostly.  _ **_Y_ ** _ ou should go there if you ever want to feel close to her without having to be close to her.  _ **_O_ ** _ r, maybe you’ll go there to feel close to me.  _ **_U_ ** _ nderstand this, you meant something to me.  _ **_R_ ** _ ight or wrong, it’s okay if I meant something to you too. _

 

**_D_ ** _ o you miss your mother?  _ **_A_ ** _ ll the time I ask myself that.  _ **_U_ ** _ tterly and totally, I feel terrible for taking her away from you.  _ **_G_ ** _ iven your breeding I wouldn’t be surprised if you felt inclined, one day, to find out first-hand what her life was like.  _ **_H_ ** _ onestly, part of me hopes you do.  _ **_T_ ** _ he fun is indescribable, the naughtiness of it was what we both liked the best. _

 

**_E_ ** _ ven now I miss her and I’m not even gone yet. _

 

**_R_ ** _ emember us both, Aoife, maybe then we can exist somewhere together. _

 

**IM GOING TO KILL YOUR DAUGHTER.**

 

_ … _

 

**_I_ ** _ f you’re reading this, happy 21st birthday. _

 

**_M_ ** _ y, right now you’re no older than ten years old.  _ **_W_ ** _ ow, this is kind of cool, past me and future you meeting in the middle of these words.  _ **_A_ ** _ nd still I can’t help but think about your mother.  _ **_I_ ** _ t plagues me, Aoife.  _ **_T_ ** _ hen I remember you might be the only other person in the world who knows what that feels like.  _ **_I_ ** _ feel less lonely then.  _ **_N_ ** _ o, less bitter.  _ **_G_ ** _ ranted, I’ll never be rainbows and sunshine the way she is. _

 

**_U_ ** _ ltimately, I guess I hope you’re like her in all the best ways while skipping over all the worst.  _ **_N_ ** _ ow I know that’s a selfish thing to ask of someone.  _ **_T_ ** _ o be honest, it’s not much of a birthday present.  _ **_I_ ** _ t is however pretty solid advice.  _ **_L_ ** _ ife will teach you how to live it, you just have to ride it out for long enough. _

 

**_S_ ** _ o, here it is.  _ **_H_ ** _ appy birthday.  _ **_E_ ** _ very year you’re going to get a little more like her and little further apart, and that’s okay.  _ **_I_ ** _ t really is.  _ **_S_ ** _ omeday you’ll be okay with being her daughter. _

 

**_T_ ** _ he most important thing is that you spend your life doing something that makes you feel alive.  _ **_R_ ** _ ight now, you’re at that age where you need excitement and adventure.  **A** nd I think you know where to find it.  _ **_N_ ** _ either me or your mother expected to find each other but god, it was worth having, it was something that made us both feel alive, and I wish that for you. _

 

**_E_ ** _ mily would almost be an adult by the time you read this, I’ve just realised that, and I know without a shadow of a doubt she would have been adventurous and wild like you.  _ **_D_ ** _ o all of it twice over, enough for her too please. _

 

**IM WAITING UNTIL SHE IS TRAINED.**

 

_ … _

 

**_D_ ** _ o you want to know something really worth knowing? _

 

**_O_ ** _ h god, it’s stupid.  _ **_E_ ** _ ven now I can’t help but laugh.  _ **_S_ ** _ o there’s this old disco song.  _ **_I_ ** _ t’s called Yes Sir I Can Boogie by Baccara.  _ **_T_ ** _ he song was mine and your mother’s love anthem.  _ **_H_ ** _ onestly, she probably still listens to it when she misses me.  _ **_U_ ** _ nless they don’t get iPods in prison, in which case she probably hums it to herself the way she used to.  _ **_R_ ** _ emember that?  _ **_T_ ** _ he way she used to hum along to songs stuck in her head. _

 

**_B_ ** _ asically, what I’m trying to say is that by the time you’re reading this you will be what?  _ **_E_ ** _ ncroaching on thirty?  _ **_C_ ** _ hances are you have either met someone or are ready to meet someone.  _ **_K_ ** _ hmer Rung, Cambodia, would be an excellent honeymoon spot if you already have, but assuming you haven’t… _

 

**_Y_ ** _ ou make sure you meet the kind of man or woman that you could spend the rest of your life dancing with to a song like that, and you quit now while you’re ahead. _

 

**DOES IT HURT BECKY?**

 

_ … _

 

**_A_ ** _ nd so time went and passed us by.  _

 

**_O_ ** _ h my love.  _ **_I_ ** _ f only you knew how much I have thought about you, every moment, every second, every bit of it, it’s all been you.  _ **_F_ ** _ illed with you.  _ **_E_ ** _ verything you. _

 

**_I_ ** _ s it rude to hope you have thought of me too?  _

 

**_S_ ** _ ometimes I think so, I know what I did to you was unforgivable. _

 

**_D_ ** _ o you remember what you said to me?  _ **_E_ ** _ choing around my mind I hear it as clear today as I did all those years ago, that you can never truly know someone until you do something unforgivable to them.  _ **_A_ ** _ nd you were right, Becky, you can’t know someone until you’ve hurt them in indescribable ways. _

 

**_D_ ** _ o you and I know one another, now? _

 

_ Charlotte xo _

 

**AOIFE IS DEAD.**

  
  



	11. The End

 

[So long and thanks for all the fish, the official song of this story.](https://listenonrepeat.com/watch/?v=YhatytEAJh4&s=&e=#Dust_to_Dust_-_The_Civil_Wars_\(Lyrics_on_screen\))

 

_It's not your eyes_ _  
_ _It's not what you say_ _  
_ _It's not your laughter that gives you away_ _  
_ _You're just lonely_   
You've been lonely, too long

 

There was a time when everything was quiet in the hospital. It came once or twice a year, just before a big storm. The floors would be filled with the worst of the worst, the silent and the dying, while the rest of the world, with their flues and strange pains and sprained ankles, waited out the weather at home with two advils and hopes that the storm would pass over the small town quickly. Doctor Nicole Peters had come to learn of this rhythm through years of experience. Thirty-five years, to be precise. Christmas and 4th of July Weekend were the worst times for injuries, ironically enough, and the start of storms and tornadoes were the best time for a quiet, boringly easy life at work.

“And bay two?” Nicole shook the rain off and hurried down the empty hallway, considerably late for her shift thanks to the roadblocks. The intern caught her up as best he could, scrolling down the brief list of this morning’s admissions.

“Broken wrist in bay two, Doctor Palmer has already set the fracture. There’s a burst cyst in four, and then a little girl with a head lac in five.” Sampson double checked.

“How deep is the head lac?” Nicole slipped off her coat and purse, reaching for the pristine white lab coat hanging on the hook behind her office door. “Also, where is the burst cyst?” She craned an eyebrow.

“Not too deep, only three butterfly stitches. As for the cyst? Perianal, and the smell is horrific.” The younger doctor made a face. It made Nicole smirk, slightly.

“Did you chase the labs I sent for last night?”

“They said there was no jumping the line.”

“Well then.” Nicole smiled and adjusted her stethoscope around her neck. “That cyst won’t pack itself.”

“You’re the worst.” The intern lightly complained to his boss, his face scrunching up in disgust. “Can’t Palmer take four? He’s been asking for more _hands on_ trauma experience ever since he missed the woman with the punctured breast implant.”

“Want to make it a week of outpatient service? I can think of at least eight immunocompromised patients who need their sutures regularly cleaned and checked for infection.”

“The crosswinds outside are 60mph. You wouldn’t.” He stared at Nicole with a look of disbelief. Slowly, his eyes grew wide as he realised just how deeply the Chief meant it. “Bay four. Got it.” He tucked the tablet under his arm and scurried down the hall.

“My labs too, chase them!” Nicole called after him.

“Yes Doctor Peters, of course Doctor Peters.” Came the faithful reply.

Nicole sighed a satisfied noise and pushed the door to her office open, desperate for at least two coffees and a peruse of the crossword section before she even thought about attending the stable trauma department down the hall. Today wouldn’t be an exciting day, not that Nicole particularly minded. Back to back emergency surgeries and associated interventions were fun but they were most certainly a young woman’s game, and God knows she had been there and got the t-shirt. There wasn’t much the old Doctor hadn’t seen in her time, two different clinical specialisms and now a small four department county hospital to run, to boot, had seen to that.

These days, a steady start to the morning with a possible resuscitation after lunch was ideal. She was knocking on for seventy-five years old, a crossword puzzle and a morning of torturing the interns was preferable to a perianal cyst any day of the week. She stuck her mug under the espresso machine and flicked through the newspaper, pushing her glasses up her nose as the coffee began to steam.

There was a light knock to the door.

“Come in?” Nicole pushed her glasses on top of her silvering hair.

A little black girl, no older than ten, walked through the door and confidently plonked herself down on the armchair that faced the Chief’s desk. She had a teddy bear under her arm and three butterfly stitches stuck to her head. She huffed and glanced at Nicole, her brown glimmering eyes glancing back to the large swivel chair as if there were important matters that needed the chief’s ear.

“Can I… do something for you?” Nicole’s eyebrow piqued in surprise.

“I heard the doctors talking. Is this the bossy lady’s office?”

“It is.” Nicole picked her coffee up and blew on the top, walking around her large desk to take a seat. “You must be very brave or just very naughty to come barging in here. What is it you need, kiddo?” Nicole couldn’t help but smirk at the silliness of it.

“You don’t look bossy.” The little girl came undone, her brow knitting together with confusion as she stared at Nicole. “You remind me of my grandma. She’s nice, and she’s tall and has grey hair too, like yours, but she lives in the city so we only see her at Thanksgiving and—”

“So, why did you come to my office again? I’m a busy bossy lady, remember?” Nicole interrupted with a wry smile and drank a small, hot slurp of coffee. She blinked and stared at the thinking child, sat there with her puffed out shoulders and gashed forehead, totally unbothered by the soreness of it.

“I want to be a doctor one day, like you. You’re the boss lady so I thought you could give me a job?”

“As a doctor?” Nicole clarified in surprise, just to be sure of the request.

“Well I would be a good doctor.” The little girl stared at her as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m not scared of blood or guts, and I’m very good at puzzles. Daddy said that being a doctor is like fixing a puzzle, we learned that on one of the shows.”

“How good are you at puzzles then?”

“Very.”

“Crosswords?”

“The best.” The little girl lifted her chin.

“Well.” Nicole sighed, someone would come looking for the little girl soon enough, she thought to herself and pulled out her folded newspaper. She might as well make the most of it. “Seven letters across, the clue is ‘To have difficulty with something.’ What do you think?”

“Mmm, problem?” The girl didn’t skip a beat.

“Hmm.” The doctor itched her ear with the pen and stared at the filled in boxes. “Can’t be, fourth letter is a vowel.”

“Oh, easy peasy!” The little girl stared at the old woman as if it were obvious. “The word is trouble.”

Nicole smiled at that.

“Well, looks as if you’re already smarter than half of the doctors here.” Nicole jotted down the word and nodded in satisfaction.

Satisfaction was such an underrated feeling, Nicole thought to herself quite abruptly. That was a young woman’s problem right there, again. When you’re young everything has to be vibrant and exciting and the beginning of something greater, more meaningful, even. It’s only with age, wisdom maybe, that people learn to just be… _satisfied_. Satisfied with what is. Satisfied with what was. Satisfied with a seven across crossword clue at six o’clock in the morning in an underfunded hospital thirty miles away from the closest city. Satisfaction was a powerful choice, Nicole believed that.

Though the woman she once was wouldn’t have even began to understood the concept.

“What do you like the most about your job?” The little girl interrupted the old doctor’s thought processes.

“Free jello.”

“Doctors get free jello?”

“If you have a good sleight of hand, sure.” Nicole shrugged and deeply meant it. “What’s your name?”

“Evelyn.”

“I’m Doctor Peters.”

“Do you get to perform surgeries, Doctor Peters?”

“Sometimes, for the most part I just make sure the hospital runs. I specialised in neurology first then trauma afterwards, I wasn’t exactly young when I went to medical school.” Nicole laughed slightly. “But, I always made a point of outshining everyone. I did lots of surgeries, ones nobody else could.” The old woman wasn’t above gloating about it.

“Is that why you have lots of trophies?” Evelyn pointed to the collection.

Nicole scratched her neck and glanced to the awards on the wall, two for a technique she developed to mitigate gunshot trauma to the thorax, one for post-mortem research in the field of reduced connections within the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, for want of a better phrase, she cut open the skulls of psychopaths with a buzzsaw and spooned through their brains like it was tapioca pudding until she found the thing that made them all tick. Which, as it turned out, was merely a lack of transport routes between two distinct parts of the brain. It was, for all intents and purposes, permanent brain damage. Nothing to fix, nothing to mitigate, just one of those funny little quirks of the universe.

“Yeah,” Nicole finally answered with a smirk. “That’s why I have lots of trophies, I’m smarter than everyone else.”

“Really? You didn’t know the crossword clue?” Evelyn reasoned.

“I did, I was just testing you.” The older woman was adamant, though truth be told there was another seven letter word, or rather a name, that came to mind when she thought of problems and trouble.

“Daddy says it will be hard to go to medical school because it’s very expensive. I was thinking I could get a job as a doctor first and then go.” Evelyn pushed out her cheeks with a baited breath, as if she were waiting for an imminent job offer.

“That sounds stupid.” Nicole blinked. “How would that even work?”

“Well, I can figure it out as I go along.” Evelyn kicked her legs through the air.

Nicole sighed and closed her eyes.

“Get that lab coat. Yeah, that one there.” She pointed to the spare on the back of her door. “We have rounds to attend. It won’t be fun and you won’t like it one bit, but if you’re going to be a doctor you may as well get a jump start.” Nicole reasoned, thinking to herself that a little company might make the morning go quicker until lunchtime.

After the little intern was dressed in a pristine white coat that needed precisely six rolls on the sleeve so her hands poked out the ends, a matching stethoscope to boot, and a small pile of paperwork for the nursing stations that Nicole didn’t want to have to carry, they were ready for their observation walk. A little down the hallway they found the girl’s parents, scratching their heads but not too frantic, as if the mischievous disappearing act of their daughter was a regular occurance they were long used to by now.

“Mind if I borrow this little resident for an hour or two?” Nicole looked at the father with a slight smirk. “Evelyn here tells me she wants to be a doctor.” She clasped the little girl’s shoulder and leaned forward with a whisper, “And it would also be ideal if I could keep an eye on her for a little while just to make sure we’re not sending her home with a concussion.”

“You sure she won’t get in your way, Doc?” The father scratched his head.

“Oh god, I know she will.” Nicole teased and shook the little one’s shoulder. “But my knees aren’t what they used to be and I could use a little helper to carry my things if you don’t mind me borrowing her?”

“Well.” He looked at his wife with lifted eyebrows. “She keeps talking about medicine. How many times will she get a chance like this?”

“Alright.” The mother smiled and kneeled down to her daughter and smoothed the frizzy wisps of her hair. “If your head hurts or if you want something to eat just come and find me, okay? We’ll be right here waiting for you.”

“Okay Mama,” Evelyn kissed her cheek and gave her mother the teddy bear.

They rode the elevator to the fourth floor where the surgical floor lived. Nicole had no plans on letting her little assistant into the operating room just yet but there were updated forms that needed filing at the nursing station and a few observation galleries open that they might be able to sneak inside of for a coffee break and a sit down. That was how Doctor Peters plotted her rounds and transport routes these days, with neat refreshment points and opportunities for a ten minute sit down between each destination on her hit list.

“Your folks seem nice,” Nicole mentioned as the elevator doors opened.

“They are,” Evelyn agreed and strolled out beside her. “They want me to go to college but they say I have to study hard so I get a scholarship. My mom always helps, it’s how we spend time together when she’s not at work.”

“Mmm.” The words stung slightly. “I wish I had a mom who loved me like that when I was younger.” Nicole scratched her silver hair. “My mom never cared about school stuff.”

“You didn’t have a good mom?”

“Well I didn’t really have a mom.” Nicole shrugged.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Nicole scoffed. “What do your mom and dad do for work?”

“They both work at the big prison in the next town over, the one with the _really_ bad guys. That’s where everyone around here works.” Evelyn shrugged as if it were the most boring job she had ever heard of — mainly because it was the only one all of the adults she knew had ever done.

“I don’t work at the big prison?” Nicole reasoned.

“Probably because you’re not from here,” Evelyn murmured. “In fact, why did you come to this hospital if you’re so good? I watch lots of Grey’s Anatomy and in the show the good doctors always go to the big hospitals with lots of money. This hospital is small and there’s stains on the ceiling.” The little girl pointed to the beige watermarks on the square ceiling tiles.

“I used to work at a big hospital. I guess I came here to wait around for someone,” Nicole said, tersely. “Small hospitals with stains on the ceiling can be exciting too if the right person walks through the door.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re ten, it’s not supposed to make sense.” Nicole became curmudgeon. “So, what do you want to specialise in exactly?”

“Being a doctor.” Evelyn chirped and pushed the paperwork onto the clean marbled counter.

“I know that, dummy.” Nicole teased and flicked through the papers to hand off to the nurse. She paused and glanced down at the little girl, “I mean, what kind of medicine do you want to do? General, Cardio, Neurology?”

“Oh. I want to operate on brains, I think.” Evelyn gave a toothy grin. “I want to see real life brains and fix them when they’re broken.”

“Well,” Nicole gave a weighty sigh and started to walk further down the hallway. “Brains are very, very hard to fix. You know that, right?”

There was a long, thoughtful pause.

“Doctor Peters, have you ever killed anyone?” The abrupt question made Nicole stop dead in her tracks.

“No deaths for a long time, no,” Nicole hummed. “It’s exciting to keep people alive, Evelyn, to force the mechanics of the body to obey your will the hard way around. That’s all being a doctor is, really.” She became tight mouthed and sure of the facts. “In terms you can understand, doctors are the most well-equipped people to kill on the entire planet if they really wanted to but they don’t, just on principle.”

“Did you get a scholarship when you went to medical school?”

“Full of questions, aren’t you?”

“Well I’m not carrying your stuff just because I feel like it.” Evelyn glanced down at the pile of folders in her little freckled arms.

“Hmm.” It made Nicole laugh. “I got my college paid for through the government, years ago. I could have paid myself but they used to have something called a G.I bill. It meant if you served in the armed forces you could go to school for free when you were finished — so I took what I was owed.”

“Is that why you went to medical school when you were older?”

“I guess had a lot of things that I needed to finish.” Nicole pushed and held the door open so the little one could duck under her arm into the stairwell. “Third floor is the neuro department. Let’s see if we can find some brain scans for you to look at.”

When they got downstairs the floor was empty and quiet, all very good signs that there wasn’t a life in imminent danger. Nicole shuffled down the hallway with her little assistant juggling folders a few steps behind, her little head poking around each hospital room to quickly appraise the patients inside. The man in room four was hooked up to a ventilator with shunts draining fluid off his brain. Nicole closed the door slightly so the little one wouldn’t see anything too morbid. That wasn’t an argument she particularly wanted to have with her parents later on.

“Ah. Doctor Peters!” A middle-aged nurse nearly bumped into Nicole, slightly giddy and blushing. She tucked her dulling ginger hair behind her ears and grinned slightly, her hands clasped together. “If I knew you were making your rounds so early I would have gone and grabbed you a coffee.” She bounced slightly on her feet.

“That’s okay, Carol,” Nicole reassured with a smile. Some things might change with time but cute redheads flirting with her wouldn’t be one of them, not now, not ever. “Looks as if you guys have everything in hand today?” The Chief glanced around the calm, ordered department.

“Spick and span, we’re on top of everything. Just the way you like it Doctor Peters.”

“You know me so well.” Nicole smirked.

“And who’s this?” Nurse Carol glanced at the little helper. “If I knew we had an important visitor I would have got two extra drinks, Chief.” Her laugh was an ear-grating sound.

“Little Evelyn wants to be a doctor.” Nicole squeezed her shoulder. “Neuro, specifically.”

“Well, I’ve just had the page to say we’ve got an inbound patient coming to stay with us for a while. Would you like to come and help make sure we have all the right equipment in central stores ready for when they get here, Evelyn?”

“How long is the patient out?” Nicole furrowed her brow.

Carol glanced at her boss and talked business with a quick, quiet tone, “Fifteen minutes inbound. Suspected mild stroke but word on the ground is that they’ve pushed anti-clot and stabilised her, patient will come through emergency and come up once they’ve checked her out.”

“And Johnson is the on-call attending?”

“He called this morning to say he can’t get in. State police have shut down the bridge now the storm is coming through. I’ve got two residents on the floor and you’re down as the covering neuro attending in his absence, I thought you knew?” Nurse Carol lifted a brow.

“Fucking Johnson,” Nicole complained.

“Fucking Johnson, right?” Evelyn rolled her eyes too as if she were one of the adults. “How can I help? I could scrub in?” Her big brown eyes gleamed hopefully.

“Not quite.” Nicole patted her head. “It looks like our morning just got cut short, kid. I’m going to have my hands full in about fifteen minutes. In fact, the patient is probably already downstairs.” It wasn’t a pleasing thought, strokes were the most boring condition that came through the unit, rarely anything meaningful that could be done once the brain tissue was damaged although it would now be her responsibility to make sure something _was_ done. Fucking Johnson, Nicole thought to herself.

“I can take her?” Carol glanced at the little girl. “We haven’t had a supply delivery this morning because of the storm, I need to double-check the central store supplies but that’s the only thing on the agenda.”

“That doesn’t sound spick and span or like you’re on top of things, Carol?” Nicole seethed slightly. “What if the patient needs chemical intervention? What if we have to operate? Can you please get it done, ideally in the next fifteen minutes.”

“Sorry, Doctor Peters.” Carol’s eyes shot down to her feet. “Do you want me to have Rachel take the little girl downstairs?”

“Evelyn! There you are—” The father appeared suddenly at the opening elevator doors down the corridor, spooked and out of breath. He raced down the hallway towards his daughter and scooped her off her feet until she was nearly over his shoulder. “Sorry to cut your tour short honey but we need to go downstairs and wait in your hospital room, right now.”

“What? But that’s not fair??” Evelyn protested with a devastated expression.

“Is everything okay?” Nicole looked at him curiously.

The father gathered himself and looked apologetic, his lips twitching side to side. He glanced at his daughter as if he were trying to find careful words for her young ears and then back to the two medical professionals who were stood there with equally confused expressions.

“One of my work buddies just called.” He licked his lips and his tone barely piqued above a whisper, “Have you ever heard of the Irishwoman? Apparently she’s on her way here. Something to do with a bad fall? I mean, she’s ancient now so it was bound to happen eventually.” He levelled a serious expression.

Nicole felt her blood run cold, and she became utterly silent.

“I heard she died years ago,” Carol scoffed. “The stories people tell seem to get more outlandish every few years. First it was fifty victims, then a hundred, then they gave her that silly nickname, last I heard she’s the most prolific serial—”

“We get the point.” Nicole halted the talkative nurse with a lifted finger. The sweating father seemed grateful for the interjection. The Chief huffed slightly and lifted her brows in surprise, “The Irishwoman, huh? I guess that must be our inbound patient. Well, it’s not often we get a celebrity come visit us.”

“She’ll have an entourage with her and I don’t want my daughter to see armed prison officers, or her for that matter. I worked on her block years ago when I was a rookie.” He covered his daughter’s ears and glanced between the two women quite seriously. “She bit off a guard’s finger through the bars of her cell when the board took her letter privileges away, don’t let the sweet old lady routine fool you.”

“I won’t,” Nicole reassured calmly. “Evelyn, go home with your dad. Keep your stitches clean and watch plenty of Cartoon Network. I’ll call your folks later and we can reschedule a tour for a Saturday, sometime. You can keep the coat, give it back to me next time I see you.” She quirked half a smile.

“We’re good to go?” The father looked relieved.

“Go on, get out of here.” Nicole smiled.

The hallway emptied out with the little family heading back downstairs and the nursing team darting down to central to check the control supplies. Nicole just stood there in the guts of the department, in the silent arteries of the hospital with nothing but the sound of fluorescent buzzing lights overhead. She drew a fast breath and blinked, steadying herself as best she could.

The waiting was over, Nicole thought to herself.

She had been Doctor Nicole Peters for so long that the cover identity had became her just as much as she had became it. Nicole Peters wasn’t home but she was a comfortable state of existence that Charlotte Flair had made for herself in the years since she put the troublemaker away. Nicole Peters was seven years of medical school, two clinical specialisms, a thousand saved lives, an unwavering stand up member of the community, and in all of that time Charlotte had managed to maintain the facade with a nearly unblemished record.

Well, if wasn’t for Aoife of course.

Truth be told, it was because of Aoife that any of it was possible in the first place.

Charlotte knew, without a doubt, that she never would have been able to stick to a decent upright existence if it wasn’t for the promise of that owed revenge. Aoife had been raised up for the cull, for the torment it would inflict, for the drawn out symphony of it, both her life and death were a love letter to the naughty one in a language only they could understand, Charlotte made no bones about that. All of it was just her way of saying, ‘My god, my god, _my fucking god_ , I don’t know how to let you go.’

That last tender murder was the only way she knew how to express how deeply she truly meant it. She prayed the long interim of time spent apart had helped Becky see things the same way.

 

…

 

 _All your actin'_ _  
_ _Your thin disguise_ _  
_ _All your perfectly delivered lies_ _  
_ _They don't fool me_   
You've been lonely, too long

 

The sleeping woman handcuffed to the gurney was at least seventy-five years old. Her hair was an equal mixture of silver and bright auburn, her wrinkled skin a creamy pale colour, her weathered hands vascular and frail, her knuckles protruding and swollen with deep pink knots where scars had developed from punching the walls. Life hadn’t been kind to the prisoner, the Doctor could already tell, although she didn’t feel bad about it in the slightest. If it wasn’t for her imprisonment then Becky certainly would have gotten herself killed years ago. Charlotte did her a favour in that regard.

She hadn’t seen her in the flesh yet but the paramilitary unit that had taken over the third floor of the hospital made sure to circulate photographs of the prisoner just in case she tried to make an escape. Charlotte tucked it away in her pocket and treated the situation as if it were an ordinary, boring patient and set to work. She ordered the residents to push anti-clotting agents, sent for scans, sent for angiogram, echocardiogram, the works.

The file said nothing more than the clinical and necessary. The patient was listed as Rebecca Lynch. The complaint of an ear-splitting headache began last night, for which the on-site prison doctor administered two ibuprofen and an aspirin once every four hours and kept her on the medical wing for observation. Ironic, Charlotte thought to herself. That measly little aspirin might have been the only thing that saved her life — thinning the blood enough for oxygen to reach her brain right up until she developed a loss of sensation on the right side of her body and an eventual loss of consciousness, requiring immediate hospitalisation.

The scans came back quicker than usual, Doctor Peters made sure of that. She poured over them from the safety of the meeting room and realised she was looking at a mild ischemic stroke. It was a breathtakingly serendipitous best case scenario if ever there was one. Charlotte rubbed her chin and stared at the deepest layers of her patient’s brain, confident she would eventually make a decent recovery, enough to be cognisant and mobile at least.

Hope wasn’t lost.

“Doctor Peters.” The intern popped his head around the meeting room door. “I brought the patient back from her MRI. You asked me to tell you when she was back in her room?”

“Mhm. Is she awake?”

“Just about. She either has a mild case of aphasia or she’s delirious, maybe both.”

“And here I was thinking today would be boring.” Charlotte pushed herself up out of the chair and shuffled out of the room. “Go. Go for lunch, I’ll take over from here.”

When she got to the end of the hallway there weren’t enough fingers left on her hands to count the number of guards who had been posted outside the patient’s door and near the exits. Charlotte pushed back her silver hair and straightened the collars of her lab coat, bird mouthed and a force to be reckoned with, she wasn’t pleased in the slightest with the disruption to her clean, ordered department floor.

“Identification.” The commanding guard stopped her with a firm grab to the bicep before she could enter the patient’s room.

“Identification? I would like to see yours.” Doctor Peters barked and levelled a serious, withering look until the hand around her arm retracted away. “I am Doctor Nicole Peters, the Chief of this hospital, and right now you and your men are terrifying my patients and staff. There are _dying_ children on this floor and you are scaring them.” It was a total lie, not that the gulping commander would ever know.

“Doctor Peters, she’s a very, very dangerous woman.” He turned and nodded to the restrained patient, his semi-automatic rifle pointed towards the floor. “Trust me, we’re doing you and your patients a service.”

“The only dangerous woman you need to concern yourself with right now is _me_.” The doctor glared hard enough to kill. “Get those handcuffs off my patient and disappear somewhere out of sight before I call the state attorney general’s office and have you forcibly removed. He’s the patron of the children’s service here, his niece is four rooms down with a terminal glioblastoma and he will not be happy when he finds out the entire Famous Fighting Fourth has took up barracks on my Neuro ward.”

“Lady, I can send a couple of guys on lunch but there’s no way I’m taking her handcuffs off.” All of the men laughed at the mere suggestion.

Charlotte stepped forward and straightened her stooped back, suddenly six foot tall again and broad shouldered like she once was.

“If I have to perform emergency life saving intervention and your restraints get in the way of that…” She shook her head severely. “I will make sure that you, specifically, are charged with culpable manslaughter. This is a hospital, not a goddamn execution chamber.”

The commander shook his head in disbelief and produced a large set of keys.

“It’s your funeral, lady,” he murmured and entered the room. “Two guards stay posted at the exits, that’s non-negotiable.” He gave the other men the nod to dissipate.

Charlotte watched the restraints come free one by one, though the prone patient in the bed did not move. Becky’s eyes were glazed and unresponsive, staring out of the gloomy window that overlooked the rain-battered trees outside. Her lips moved as if she were mumbling to herself, silently.

In thirty-five years, Charlotte hadn’t wanted anything as desperately as she wanted to know what the little troublemaker was saying. After a moment, Charlotte became aware that the commanding guard had no intention of leaving the room.

“I’m about to examine and treat my patient.” Charlotte nodded at the door for him to leave.

“And I’m about to stand right here and make sure she doesn’t snap your neck while you do so, Doctor.”

“Fine.” Charlotte didn’t blink. “Well I hope you have a strong stomach. My goodness… I don’t know if you have a grandmother but I pray to god she is never treated this indignantly…” She shook her head in disbelief.

She reached down and undid the ties along the side of the hospital gown. The patient in the bed didn’t move or protest, her barely cracked eyes fixed and unmoving from the thundering storm outside. Charlotte thought it was probably for the best that the troublemaker was delirious as she opened the hospital gown and left nothing to the imagination. Calmly, she stood over the bed with a clinical disposition and began to make observations out loud into a tape recorder that wasn’t even switched on.

“Patient is a seventy-five year old female admitted with a suspected ischemic stroke. Her vitals are stable, heart rate slightly tachycardic. There is slight bruising to the underside of the right breast, intake notes suggest the patient collapsed and may have injured herself during the fall.” Charlotte leaned over and pressed a palm underneath the indecently exposed woman’s breast, palpating around the bruised flesh. It made Becky whimper slightly and croak with the pain. “Possible fracture to the fourth and fifth rib,” she announced into the recorder and moved to the deep blue bruising above her groin.

The prison guard blushed a deep, violent shade of crimson and turned his face away towards the wall. Charlotte took the opportunity to take the glass of water off the side table and spill it between the patient’s thighs, just above the faint outline of an iron-shaped imprint of a scar. Sleight of hand, it always came in handy.

“Oh. Oh goodness,” Charlotte hummed a disappointed noise that caught the guard’s attention. “Poor thing. There’s no need to be embarrassed Mrs Lynch, accidents happen. It’s not your fault, we’ll get you cleaned up and comfortable.” The doctor reassured and beckoned the guard over. “Here, you come here.”

“What do you need me for?” He became wide-eyed and horrified.

“Well, considering you’re taking up space and refusing to give this elderly woman the right to a private medical consult you may as well pass me the supplies I need to clean her up.” Charlotte glared and snapped on a pair of blue gloves with a loud crack. “Pass me that catheter kit on the tray and take one of her knees—”

“I’m good! I’m, er— I’m— I’m not qualified for this.” The guard burst with embarrassment and darted his eyes to the floor, to the ceiling, to everywhere that wasn’t the naked elderly woman in the hospital bed who had presumably pissed herself.

“Hmm. She’s suddenly not so scary now, right?” Charlotte cocked a brow.

“I really should stay in this room.” The man couldn’t bring himself to tear his stare off the wall. “I don’t think you realise the gravity of how dangerous that woman is.”

“Maybe, once.” Charlotte shrugged. “I’m about to perform a very intimate procedure on this frail, vulnerable, elderly woman. So I’ll ask you consider this, criminal or not, would you want your grandmother to be treated this way?” Charlotte wouldn’t back down from the ledge.

He paused and thought about, instantly becoming a man completely dictated by his emotions. Charlotte wanted to scoff and admonish him for it, point out just how easy it was to manipulate him and how he really should know better given his profession. She didn’t. She stayed silent and kept her stare filled with a faint sense of repulsion and disgust at his treatment of the naked old lady who hadn’t actually pissed herself but looked as though she had.

“I’ll be right outside if you need anything, Doctor.” The man relented and saw himself out, closing the door behind himself as he left.

Charlotte swore she heard him mutter that he hoped the prisoner stabbed her with the pen. If only he knew the variety of things Becky had already stabbed her with in times long since passed, the thought made her want to smirk.

“Well, we’re alone now — your tits got him off our back.” Charlotte pulled the hospital gown back over her body and made the troublemaker decent. “You still have a tight body, you know. A little wrinkly but hey, who isn’t?” She smirked.

The patient said nothing, eyes glazed and lips occasionally pursing.

“Hello again,” Charlotte whispered, dumbly.

She reached over for the wad of towels on the tray to dry the spilled water off her troublemaker. A hand shot out and grabbed her other wrist, the one that was firmly grasping the railing of the bed. Charlotte stopped and slowly turned around, looking at the weathered, vascular hand clutching at her own liver spotted wrist.

She waited for a verbal sign of recognition before she said anything incriminating, just to be certain that Becky knew who she was.

“If. If. If you—” The stutters ended before they got anywhere interesting.

“Go slowly, there’s no rush,” Charlotte said.

“If you put a catheter inside of me.” Becky closed her eyes and struggled to form the words. “I’ll put a knife inside of you.”

“There she is.”

“How long have I been here, Doc?” Becky opened her eyes again, glancing around and unsure of herself, unsure of the woman stood beside her bed. “Has she came yet?”

“Has who came yet?” Charlotte grew curious and hopeful.

Her little troublemaker pushed that infamous, sorely missed grin up her cheeks. It was a sight Charlotte didn’t realise how much she had missed until she finally saw it once again. The smile greeted her like an old friend. Suddenly, she felt thirty years old again with the world at her feet and nothing but sunrises and mischief to chase after.

“She’ll come for me,” Becky mumbled and closed her eyes, still grinning. “My daughter, Aoife, she’ll come. She never lets her mammy down.”

Charlotte felt what was left of her cold black heart sink into the pit of her gut.

“What year do you think it is, Rebecca?” Charlotte forced herself to become a diligent, clinically minded doctor once more. The delirium was either precisely that or potential brain damage, maybe even dementia.

“We don’t have calendars in prison.”

“How long do you think you’ve been in prison for?”

“A long time, I don’t know.” The woman huffed, her nose scrunching up with pain. “I saw my girl last month. Aoife was angry, said she was off to Cambodia. She’ll come back soon though, she always does.” The old woman in the bed was so certain of it.

“How old is your girl?” Charlotte indulged the delirium and sat herself down on the plastic chair.

“Twenty-four, there about.”

Charlotte remembered Aoife at that age clear as yesterday, just on the edge of her prime, chasing the vague imprints of her mother left on foreign shores of the world between her first few hitjobs. Nicole Peters took two weeks unpaid vacation around that time, caught a glimpse of the littlest troublemaker in a street market just outside Battambang. Aoife didn’t recognise her, though of course she wouldn’t. She was once called the Queen of Shadows for a reason.

“Does she have the accent too?” The doctor smiled at the way the Irishwoman spoke.

“Aye, thick as shite.” Becky chuckled to herself slightly. “And you? Do you have kids?”

“I did, once.” Charlotte clasped her hands and looked between her knees. “I was career focused, too wild for that kind of commitment.” The doctor shrugged earnestly. “My sister raised her.”

“Rolling stones, something something.” Becky nodded and still didn’t cotton on.

“So why Cambodia?”

“She thinks she’ll find something worth learning about me there, I think.” The old woman’s glassy eyes peered back to the gloomy window. “You can’t tell kids, they never want to hear.” She complained with another painful wince. “All that’s waiting in Cambodia is roads where nobody knows how to drive and squatting toilets without paper. I hated that, used to have to wipe my arse with my ex-girlfriend’s socks.”

 _So that’s where all her socks went_ , Charlotte finally realised thirty-five years after the fact.

“Are you expecting anybody else to come visit? I can keep an eye out for you, doubt the guys outside plan on letting you walk around.”

Becky stared out the window solemnly.

“Eh, the one person I want to see doesn’t come around here anymore.” It was said with profound, utter sadness. “She’s long gone.”

If only Becky knew the truth, Charlotte wanted the faint trace of guilt absolved from her conscience. Charlotte was never gone, not in the ways that mattered at least. Her life was spent writing the ultimate love letter to that bastard woman. These last fifteen years had been spent at the closest hospital to the supermaximum prison for this precise reason. In fact, coming here was the very first thing Charlotte did after she finished Aoife. She took this dump of a hospital over with all the boring bureaucracy that went with it in the slim hope there could be a softer, final epilogue for the both of them. A last little dalliance of the game that had devoured their entire lives in flames and gasoline.

God, Charlotte had suffered the loneliness too, by her own hand, granted, but she still wanted to scream those words at the little psychopath, every moment of her suffering was profoundly soaked in a sense of permanent obsession for troublemaker, always and always and always. She wanted to grab her slender jaw and scream those words into her wrinkled throat. I love you, I love you, in a thousand worlds I have loved you.

“You should get some sleep.” The clinical doctor won the war being fought within herself. “I’ll bring you something warm to drink if you’re awake when I’ve finished my observations.”

“Thanks, if I get out of this room I’ll be sure to kill you last.”

“Well.” Charlotte pursed her lips. “It would be appreciated.”

 

…

 

 _Let me in the wall, you've built around_ _  
_ _And we can light a match and burn it down_   
Let me hold your hand and dance 'round and 'round the flame

 

“The patient is stable, now the stent has been placed there’s no reason we can’t ship her back to the medical wing at the big house and check in with her for regular follow-ups.” The intern threw up some scans on the screen.

“ _Pllllghhghhghh_ —” Charlotte blew raspberries at the suggestion and fixed a bored expression, too much herself and not enough like Doctor Nicole Peters for the liking of the boardroom. “Stupid idea, Palmer. No wonder Columbia didn’t want you.”

“Excuse me?” He became deeply offended.

“The patient has no idea what year it is, observation reports show she’s making incremental progress but she barely remembers new information for more than a few hours at a time. Everything is pointing to either vascular dementia or brain damage. She needs to stay here, with us.” Charlotte put her feet up on the boardroom table.

“What if that’s her game?” Doctor Palmer blinked at the old woman who, unfortunately for him, ran this place. “If you were a prisoner at Florence Supermax would you be hurrying to go back up there? She’s a drain on our resources.”

“Maybe you’re right. If you are, she’ll slip up eventually.” Charlotte held out hope that such was the case. “Considering she’s only been with us for seven days you’re awfully quick to send her back up the hill?”

“I’m tired of seeing men with guns in the hallway, Doctor Peters. It’s not good for morale.”

“Ding-ding-ding!” Charlotte twirled around on her chair. “Congratulations, _you_ just won an all-expenses paid trip to the outpatient service for the next week. It’s going to be nothing but sun, sea, sand, and secreting surgical incisions for you to clean, my friend.”

“Doctor Peters.” Doctor Palmer furrowed his brow severely and allowed the tablet to fall to his side. “Are you feeling yourself?” He dropped his voice to a quiet, concerned tone.

“I do, thank you for the concern. I cannot abide a doctor who is more concerned with his own personal comfort than the wellbeing of a patient, no matter how dangerous that patient may be. The door.” Charlotte pointed sternly. “I’m assuming you know how to use it?” She blinked.

 _Another one bites the dust_ , Charlotte thought to herself. All of the doctors and nurses who might possibly grow suspicious about how much time the Chief was spending on the prisoner’s case were swiftly moved around and shuffled about. Charlotte didn’t know when the pot would boil over, but she certainly intended on being around when it did without fear of her cover being blown too early.

“Are none of you guys going to say anything?” Doctor Palmer looked to his fellow junior residents, waiting for someone to join him and stand up to the curmudgeon old woman who punished them at whim.

“Nah bro, I’m good.” The first smirked.

“Yeah,” Sampson agreed. “I vote the serial killer stays. Enjoy outpatient, tell Mrs Strowman with the foot abscess that I said hi.” He waved his colleague goodbye.

Charlotte waited until Doctor Palmer had slunked off down the hallway before she turned to the juniors she had enough sway with to bring to heel as and when proved convenient.

“I need you two to be my hands. I’m going to be on the third floor working this case, it’s been a while since I dealt with an ischemic stroke diagnosis presenting with these symptoms and, what with Doctor Johnson’s unfortunate suspension pending investigation, I want to stretch my wings out now I’m covering his service. Can you handle organising the resourcing for the other services?” She craned a brow.

“You… you don’t want an attending to do that?” Sampson’s eyes lit up.

“I need the attendings on the ground where they’re most useful. It will be good logistics experience for the both of you, scheduling and balancing resources are skills the bigger hospitals look for in doctors responsible for departments, and I know I have nothing to worry about with the services in both of your capable hands.” A little sycophancy always went a long way with young men who felt they had something to prove, and besides, it was work that could be done with two eyes shut. “I’m trusting on you both not to let me down?” She lifted a severe brow.

“Oh, trust me.” Sampson shot up and grabbed his friend. “We’ve got it in hand, Doctor Peters. You won’t be bothered at all, have at your stroke lady on third!” He dragged his buddy out the door to get a head start on the day.

“Hmm. Thank you, I will do just that.” Charlotte pushed a slow, cool smile.

By the time she made it to the last room at the end of the hallway on the third floor, the patient was already awake and incessantly pressing the nursing assistance button on the little remote control in search of a second coffee to kickstart the morning. Two armed guards remained outside the stairwell and elevator in the hallway, always, but the prisoner was allowed free reign to shuffle around behind the locked door of her hospital room. She was on the fourth floor with nothing but concrete ground below — if the old unhinged woman tried to make an escape out of the window she would be doing everyone a favour.

“Knock knock.” Charlotte pushed through the door with two coffees in her hands. “How are we today, Becky?”

“So this is where she dumped me?” Becky snapped around with an infuriated expression. “And you, I bet you’re in on the whole thing too. Oh that _fucking woman_ ,” Becky seethed and stormed over, snatching one of the coffee cups.

“I answer to no one but myself,” Charlotte reassured the patient.

“Hmm. Did she tell you to say that?” Becky had a wild, angry look in her eyes as if she might start swinging fists. “You’re fucking in on it too. You’re all _fucking_ in on it!”

Charlotte didn’t even blink. The doctor just stood there with a cold stare, unbothered and calm about the whole thing. After a few moments passed it took the wind out of the troublemaker’s sails until her spine slouched with a deep, calming breath. Becky blinked and swallowed hard, glancing around and unsure of why it was she was angry in the first place.

“God you’re a long way from home,” Charlotte whispered quietly.

“I wouldn’t know.” Came the uncertain reply.

“Can you tell me what year it is?” Charlotte was unphased by the insane woman, she perched herself on the edge of the cabinets while the muttering patient paced back and forth with a warm decaf in her hands.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. The drugs she gave me—” There was a long, angry huff. “I don’t remember much.”

“What do you remember?”

“You’re a doctor, right?” Becky’s cold eyes snapped at her. “Did she really stamp me with an iron the other night?” She lifted the hospital gown and pointed to the faded, pink scar on her thigh. In her devolving mind, it was as fresh and blistered as it had been thirty-five years ago.

Charlotte paused and blinked slowly.

“It looks that way, doesn’t it?” She observed. “You must have really pissed her off.”

“You don’t know either of us well enough to make that kind of assessment, Doctor Peters.” Becky shuffled to her bed and placed her weathered, vascular hands on the railing for support.

“You remembered my name, that’s good.” Charlotte jotted the observation down on her little notepad. “The drugs she gave you must be wearing off,” she added, tethering the elderly woman to a memory that felt familiar.

“I saw her no more than three days ago but—” Becky came undone, wrinkled eyes darting around the room, hands growing tighter around the railings of the bed, lost within the choppy oceans of herself in a rubber dingy that was bleeding air out of the sides. “It feels like it’s been longer than that. It feels like there’s an angry, empty hole in my chest where the shape of her is supposed to be and I don’t— I don’t understand _why_.”

Charlotte inhaled a slow deep breath.

“It was a cold night. You had stabbed her a few months before so when you came back around again she strung you up and gave you those.” Charlotte nodded at the two deep puncture scars on the back of her biceps and the burn on her thigh. “She was angry you didn’t replace her eggs at the apartment. You thought that was funny. You asked her what it was that she wanted, and she told you it was an industrial refrigerator. You thought that was even funnier.” Charlotte watched the old woman grow quiet as she listened intently, eyes glimmering and lips twitching into a smile. “When she told you she thought your body was beautiful you blushed, and that made her blush. It made you feel like you had won a little game whenever you saw her blush, you told me that once.” The corner of Charlotte’s mouth twitched too.

“I must have been really out of it if I told you all of that stuff about her,” Becky mumbled, far more calm and collected now.

“Doctor patient confidentiality, I won’t say a peep.” Charlotte cleared her throat and jotted something down. “I need to check your blood pressure, is that alright with you?”

“Given you apparently know me so well aren’t you worried I might try to kill you?” Becky’s eyes glimmered mischievously.

“That sounds like a special thing reserved just for the two of you.”

 

…

 

 _You've held your head up_ _  
_ _You've fought the fight_ _  
_ _You bear the scars_ _  
_ _You've done your time_ _  
_ _Listen to me_   
You've been lonely, too long

 

“Doctor Peters?” Sampson said with a rushed, out of breath tone.

Charlotte scratched her head and sighed, fisting the blankets and pulling them back over her shoulder so the warmth inside the covers didn’t escape. It had been a fortnight since the troublemaker had blown back into her life like a category five hurricane, and tonight was the first night since then that she had known the comfort of her own bed.

“What do you want, Sampson? It’s three-thirty,” Charlotte grumbled into the phone.

“You told me to call if anything came up on your service, your serial killer is asking for you. She is highly distressed.” The young doctor sounded as if he were in a war zone, the blaring of emergency alarms pounding away in the background. “Do you want me to administer chloral hydrate? She’s trashing her room.”

“No! Don’t tranq her! I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Just, keep her contained.” Charlotte shot out of the blankets.

“Doctor Peters?”

“Yes, Sampson?”

“She’s very confused, she seems to think you’re her fiance. Are you sure you don’t want me to administer antipsychotics?”

“Well.” Charlotte exhaled deeply and wrestled her pants on. “I’ve had better come-ons, I’ll be honest, but we shouldn’t press tranquilisers with her heart in such bad condition. Twenty minutes, just stop her getting through that locked door.”

“Any means necessary?”

“I mean, preferably don’t shoot her?”

“Fire extinguisher, got it.”

Charlotte drove like a bat out of hell through the wet streets, rain clattering the pavements and roof of her car. She blew through two stop signs and a set of red lights, unperturbed with little codes of conduct anymore as she cut the corner and skidded into the hospital parking lot in record breaking time. The majority of her weapons arsenal had long since been buried piece by piece over the years, some of it burned, some of it under cement, most of it just wrapped in cloth and left somewhere that once meant something to her. The only thing left was a tiny handgun in the glove compartment. It was for self-defense, mostly. She shoved it down the back of her trousers, almost certain that she would need it. Becky apparently knew who she was, or at least had a clearer picture of things. Charlotte was old and a little frail, not stupid.

“Put my things in my office.” Charlotte shoved her purse and coat into Sampson’s waiting arms as she shook the rain off just inside of the electric doors. “Any developments I should know about before I check on Mrs. Flair?”

“Mrs. Flair?” Sampson knotted his brow in confusion.

“Mrs. Peters. The prisoner. It was a joke—that she’s my wife, I mean.” Charlotte shook her head and stepped on to the waiting elevator. “Go take a coffee break, I’ll page if I need anything,” she said through the closing doors.

The third floor swirled with the quiet steadiness of nurses wandering out of rooms, night shift orderlies pushing laundry carts, and the two constant armed sentinels posted at either exit point. Everything was calm and ordered. Charlotte was at a loss, it felt as though she had stepped out of the elevator into an alternate dimension.

“I heard there was trouble with Shawshank?” The doctor eyed the uniformed prison guard stood at the elevator and nodded her head to the bottom of the quiet hallway.

“Lady you don’t even know the half,” he scoffed.

“Nothing a cup of cocoa can’t fix, I’m sure.” Charlotte hummed to herself and walked around the nursing station counter towards the hot drink machine. “You want something to drink too?” She asked over her shoulder, placing one of the tiny plastic cups underneath the nozzle.

Charlotte didn’t want to ask outright just what the little troublemaker had been saying, but she felt the offer of a warm drink was a good place to start with gathering a little intel.

There was a long pause.

“She killed a baby once, do you know that?” The guard said abruptly, his tone full of accusation and resentment. He adjusted himself and swallowed hard, eyes narrowed precariously at Doctor Peters as if she were part of the problem. “You swan around here mollycoddling that old bitch but she just isn’t like us, her heart is black and cold. She belongs in a cement box, not a hospital ward.”

Charlotte hesitated and undid her tight fingers from the side of the coffee machine one by one.

“Actually her heart is a purple crimson colour, a pale shade of yellow just beneath the ventricle and aorta where the lipid fat tissue has built up with age. It’s very warm too, surprisingly hot to the touch.” Charlotte sipped her drink and ran a hand over her silver hair, thinking about it more. “The first time you hold a beating heart in your hands you can’t believe how hot and wet it is, heavy too. I’m a doctor, not a mortician, so I don’t know much about black cold hearts and I’m assuming you don’t either… so perhaps we should just stick to what we know?” Her eyebrows lifted up. “I’ll worry about keeping the baby killer alive, you just stand there and look pretty while I do it.”

“This bitch,” the prison guard scoffed to himself with a shake of the head.

Charlotte walked down the hallway and unlocked the door at the bottom of the room. She stepped inside and surveyed the damage, and by god the troublemaker had put in enough work to keep the janitorial team busy for a few hours. The cabinet doors had nearly been ripped off the unit, the blankets were crumpled and thrown all over the room, the walls dented with imprints from her fist and feet. If it wasn’t bolted to the wall, Becky had thrown it against the door.

“Hello again,” Charlotte greeted the heaving woman sat on the edge of the bed, calmly.

Becky stared at her like a woman out of her time, like a woman who couldn’t make sense of the world that has long since forgotten her and so she had to fill in the blanks with the shape of memories from years long since passed. Her big brown eyes were empty and confused, hidden behind a layer of sweaty, displaced silver hair. Charlotte sighed in disappointment, whatever the troublemaker had remembered it was as good as dead and forgotten now.

“I don’t want to see her again. I already told you that,” Becky whispered quietly, her voice throbbing with heartbreak. “I don’t understand why you keep asking me to hold and feed her, it won’t change my mind.” She glanced away nervously and tucked a rope of silvering ginger hair behind her ear.

Charlotte couldn’t remember ever seeing her look this human before.

“Can you tell me what year it is?”

“Christmas, I think?”

“Can you tell me how old you are?” Charlotte tried a different tactic. “I just need to go over a few details, for the paperwork.” She smiled and held up her blank clipboard.

“Nineteen, nearly twenty.”

“Gosh, you’re practically a baby yourself.” Charlotte wanted to laugh at the thought of Becky bringing a life into the world that young. “Have you thought of a name for her?”

“Won’t her new mammy decide all that?”

“You should name her, if you want too.” Charlotte swallowed hard. “It will make it easier to say goodbye. I think, at least.”

“Is that your professional opinion?”

“It’s the only opinion I have, professional or otherwise.”

There was something violently voyeuristic about bearing witness to this. She was wandering through the lost tapes of her little troublemaker’s mind. She was glancing inside rooms that had long since been locked away. She was dragging her finger through the dust that had accumulated on top of her spent life. Charlotte was, for all intents and purposes, inserting herself in all the moments of Becky’s existence that she had no copyright claims to.

“Her dad chose a name for her before he died but I…” Becky exhaled and looked up, her expression screwed tightly as if she had just woken up from a long nap and didn’t know what was happening. “The only name I remember is Charlotte. It wasn’t that though, that’s a stupid name for a baby.” She shook her head decisively. “I just… I can’t get that name out of my head for some reason…”

“Why don’t you call her Rebecca? That’s a nice name.”

“No,” Becky scoffed and looked around. “I don’t want her to be like me. I don’t want her to have even a tiny little bit of me. I just, I just want her to go away and never come back—somewhere I’ll never find her. Ma thinks she’s keeping the baby but that is… that is a terrible idea.” Becky gravely shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“What about Aoife? What do you think about that name?”

Becky sighed and thought about it.

“Well I don’t hate it.”

“You should get some sleep,” Charlotte became bored and a little dissapointed. “I’ll make sure you’re left alone, if that’s what you want.” The doctor stood up from her perch and made a step towards the door, satisfied there was nothing to gain from staying.

“Stay.”

Charlotte halted, inhaling a deep, fast breath with her fingers stuck on the door handle.

“I don’t know who you are—” Becky fumbled over herself in frustration, lost in the deepest layers of herself. “You— You always leave me. I don’t know who you are but you always leave and I miss you when you’re not here. Why is that?”

Charlotte slowly turned around and stared down the love of her life as if this were a game in and of itself, one that Becky was winning and didn’t even have the mental fortitude left to know it.

“I’m the cancer that if you had any sense you would have cut out right at the very beginning, Becky.” The doctor nodded severely, her voice a low dark tone. “I’m the only pain you have ever known. I’m the empty, cold void where the best years of your life vanished. I am the woman who won, who beat you, who scaled the mountain top across the crushed spine of every comfort you ever knew. I am the woman who loves you, Becky. I am the woman who loves you, and loves you, and can’t stop loving you even when I’m the one putting the knife in your back. That’s who I am to you. I am every dark corridor in your mind that you can’t find the light switch to.”

Becky’s lips twitched into a faint smirk as if it all sounded so familiar yet so far away from anything she knew.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” Becky glanced back at the hospital bed. “Stay, please. Just until I fall asleep?”

Charlotte sighed and held her breath.

“I miss you, Becky,” Charlotte whispered and kicked off her shoes. “My god, if only you were here to see it.”

 

…

 _Let me in the wall, you've built around_ _  
_ _And we can light a match and burn them down_   
And let me hold your hand and dance 'round and 'round the flames   


 

“The prisoner is in a stable condition, correct?” The assistant medical director for the Federal Bureau of Prisons reviewed the case with a furrowed brow and clasped hands.

“In the loosest sense of the word, yes.” Doctor Peters poured a glass of water for herself and placed the jug back on the table.

“Your patient is a category A+ federal inmate. The assumption was that she would be cleared to return to the care of the prison medical wing post-surgery? I’m sure I don’t need to tell you this but having a serial killer shacked up here on the taxpayers’ dime with all the constant armed guarding that requires isn’t convenient for either of us.” He chuckled slightly and glanced up from the case file.

“Ultrasound shows that arterial blood flow to the brain is still compromised. She’s at risk of another stroke until we’ve decided the most appropriate course of treatment. It might be another stent, it might be a carotid endarterectomy. I won’t know until I’ve consulted with the attending cardiovascular surgeon from Reagan University Hospital.”

“You’re bringing in a doctor from Reagan?” He seemed surprised.

“We don’t have much of a cardiovascular department here.” Doctor Peters shrugged. “Reagan is the closest hospital with a decent department. I could look into the logistics of moving her there if you would prefer?” She knew it wouldn’t be optimal.

“Doctor Peters, let me be clear.” Director Barnes cleared his throat. “She’s a seventy-five year old woman who has spent the best part of her life in solitary confinement. I would be greatly surprised if she _wasn’t_ at risk for a stroke.”

“Do you remember the Hippocratic oath you took?”

“Please, Nicole.” Director Barnes stared at her, aghast. “I’m not being callous, I’m just trying to be realistic here. The inmate has been under your direct care for a month now and I need a more pressing reason than the risk of a secondary stroke to justify her continued hospitalisation to the board. You and I, we understand private sector patient care. The board only cares about balance sheets.” He tapped the open folder with his pointer finger.

“Well, I’m afraid you’ll have to tell the board that I’m not releasing this patient into the care of a prison physician who doesn’t have the specialist knowledge to appropriately treat her.” A little bit of Charlotte’s bite bubbled to the surface. “When I have answers, you’ll have answers.”

“She’s an old lady who had a stroke, an old lady who now has the onset of vascular dementia.” Director Barnes tried to reason with the woman. “You can’t cure her, Nicole. All you can do is buy her a little time. Do you really want to add _more_ time to her sentence?”

“You’re right, I’m not a judge or a jury.” Doctor Peters stood from her chair and straightened her jacket. “I’m also not an executioner, Barnes. I won’t compromise my patient’s care, balance sheets or not.”

“I can buy you another two weeks, tops.” Director Barnes relented. “Then, this will go upstairs for my boss and your boss to iron out the details. I hope for both our sakes you find what you’re looking for in the next fortnight, Doctor Peters.” He shuffled his papers.

“Me too, Director Barnes.” Doctor Peters calmly left.

 

…

 

 _You're like a mirror, reflecting me_ _  
_ _Takes one to know one, so take it from me_ _  
_ _You've been lonely_   
You've been lonely, too long

 

“Where did you get those?” Charlotte stared at the hoard of pudding cups in the bedside drawer. “You’re on twenty-four hour lockdown in this room. Where did you get pudding cups?” Her voice went warbly and high with disbelief.

The old woman simply shrugged.

“Don’t remember.” The troublemaker licked the layer of pudding off the wrapper and tossed it in the wastebasket. “I think my daughter is coming to see me today. Do you know if she’s coming?” She stared at the doctor expectantly.

Charlotte sighed deeply, the words of the assistant director ringing in her ears as she stared at the forgetful patient enjoying pudding cups on borrowed time that neither of them had to waste.

“If this is part of some bigger game you’re playing I suggest you work in both of our interests and stop being a complete cunt with the sick old lady routine.” Charlotte slumped down on the plastic chair and rubbed her swollen, sore knee. Her body wasn’t what it used to be, the aches and pains of old age only added to her exasperation. “They want you shipped back to Supermax yesterday. I’m the only thing you have standing in the way of that. I suggest you start playing ball with me because I didn’t wait all of this time—” Charlotte sighed and came to an unnatural pause. Slowly, she hung her head. “I didn’t wait all of this time to lose you again.”

Something twinkled in Becky’s eyes as if she were a new woman, or rather an old woman, a past reiteration of herself, a ghost of who she once was in the places she had once been. It happened now and then when stimuli or conversation triggered it. The troublemaker’s eyes gleamed and glittered naughtily, haughtily, more than a little proud.

Charlotte held her breath and waited for just a little symptom of recognition.

“She was never an accomplice, I did it all and I did it alone,” Becky said with a cold, unfeeling smirk. “Charlotte Flair never went to Manila. Charlotte Flair never visited the Empress Hotel. Charlotte Flair didn’t kill those senators. Charlotte Flair was nothing more than a second-rate laggy to the boss man on her best day. And the fact you’re offering me a plea deal to turncoat on a dead woman makes me think that Charlotte Flair isn’t so dead after all…”

Charlotte leaned back in her chair and blinked in disbelief.

When she had originally told Becky on that fateful night at the chapel that she had took a deal with the federal prosecution, it was the absolute truth. The only thing she lied about was the length of her supposed sentence. It was never going to be twenty-five years in Supermax, she just said that make her supposed suicide more believable in Becky’s mind. The D.A had originally offered her ten years for turning over Laszlo Varga and Rebecca Lynch, which she then bargained down to five years with a whole new identity upon release, and the prosecution were utterly seething about the whole thing. They knew well and good about the Queen of Shadows but the trouble was they didn’t have a shred of evidence to prove it to a jury. They didn’t have a shred of evidence to prosecute any of them… right up until Charlotte offered it to them on a silver platter.

The prosecution got Becky and Laszlo, and Charlotte got a slap on the wrist, and everyone walked away from the table with some semblance of a small victory. Again, the trouble was that Charlotte Flair had no intention of serving five minutes in prison let alone five years. When she stabbed herself it wasn’t just Becky she was beating, it was the whole damn system. The prosecution dropped the charges against her all together. Nobody wanted to explain to a federal judge why the star woman in the biggest trial since the prosecution of Al Capone—who at the time was lying in intensive care with eleven stab wounds believed to be caused by the accused—should be shipped out to a federal prison where she would be a sitting duck for retaliation by the crime syndicate she helped put away. No, much better for everyone involved just to let the world think Charlotte Flair had died that night.

The prosecution must have been very unhappy about the little trick she had pulled if they were willing to go out on a limb and offer Becky a reduced sentence for talking about the role Charlotte played in the Manila Job.

“Just a second-rate laggy to the boss man, huh?” Charlotte smiled softly. “She put you in prison for the rest of your life without a second thought. Why would you care so much about protecting her?”

“Protecting who?” Becky became confused again, her eyes glancing around. “Is my daughter here yet?”

“Why didn’t you take the deal? Why didn’t you give her up when they offered you an out?” Charlotte pressed for an answer.

Becky grew quiet.

“She won.” The troublemaker stared as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “It would have been a very rude thing to do to her.”

“Tell me you know who I am?” Charlotte leaned forward, jaw clenched and desperate for the right answer. “Please, just tell me you know who I am to you?” Her voice became quiet and serious.

Becky opened her eyes again and stared at the woman beside her bed.

“I’m sorry, I don’t.”

 

…

 

 _You're like a mirror, reflecting me_ _  
_ _Takes one to know one, so take it from me_ _  
_ _You've been lonely_   
You've been lonely, too long

 

“You handed over free reins of the hospital to two junior residents?” The board director for the city’s hospitals seethed with all the signed authorisation paperwork in his hand. Doctor Peters didn’t bother looking up from her newspaper as the folders were tossed in front of her one after another. “Orders, supply requests, quarterly budgets, fucking _paychecks_ for Christ’s sake! All of it signed by those two numskulls!”

“You asked me to give you world-class doctors.” Charlotte sipped her coffee and furrowed her brow at the four across on her Thursday crossword. “Impudent, first letter is R. Any thoughts?”

“Is this supposed to be some sort of joke, Nicole?” The director’s eyes nearly bulged out of his skull.

“Do you really think I would let anything get by me?” The doctor leaned back in her chair and stared at him coolly. “I have everything in hand. This is me training young doctors to think like old ones so you won’t have to when I retire. You should be thanking me!” Charlotte screwed her expression.

“It’s not just that though, is it?” The director sat himself down in the leather chair. “I got a phone call yesterday from the head of the Federal Board of Prisoners. You’re holding a serial killer hostage on your service?”

“Hostage is the wrong word entirely,” Charlotte whispered.

To hold the troublemaker hostage left room to the imagination that she might possibly hand her back. To hold the troublemaker hostage assumed she was using her for leverage for something else that she wanted. Charlotte didn’t want anything. Charlotte had no intention of handing her back. For better or worse, Becky belonged to her. All Charlotte wanted was for Becky to be cognisant enough to recognise the fact.

“At the end of the month you’re going to retire, Nicole,” the director said with a calm tone.

“No, Anthony.” Charlotte smiled. “I don’t believe I will.”

“You will.” The director nodded severely and opened one of the boring beige folders taking up space on her desk. “Evelyn Richards, ten years old. She came to this hospital a little over a month ago with a head laceration that required three stitches. Just a bump to the head after she fell from her bike, on the surface of things. She was sent home without proper observation or follow-up. Twenty-four hours later she was throwing up, lethargic, struggling to eat or drink. There was a storm overhead, her folks had been told by two doctors here that there was nothing wrong with her, they thought it was just the flu and decided to wait out the storm. Twenty-four hours after that, she was rushed to the pediatric unit at Reagan University Hospital which was where they discovered the bleed on her brain…”

Charlotte remained stoic and unemotional as the story lead to where she suspected it was going. The director paused for a moment and flicked through the paperwork, stopping when he reached the discharge forms. He turned the folder around and placed the evidence underneath her nose.

“Two discharge signatures. Yours and Doctor Sampson’s — one of the junior residents you foolishly entrusted the day to day running of this hospital with, as I understand it.” The director snapped the folder closed in his hand. “Evelyn Richards was turned off at 8pm last night, the brain damage was just too substantial. You might have been able to save that little girl but it got by you, Doctor Peters.” There was a weighty sigh. “I’ve seen this happen to better doctors than the both of us put together, Nicole. The moment when it’s time to hang the coat up and find another reason to live. There’s no reason to torture yourself over what could have been, just accept that it’s done.”

Charlotte felt her molars nearly clench to dust.

“I’m not retiring.” She vehemently shook her head. “Anybody could have missed that bleed! I evaluated that patient myself and she was—she was fine!” It felt as though the universe was playing one of its cruel tricks on her.

“You’re going to step down from your position and retire from medicine indefinitely, effective a month from today.” The director stood up from his seat and grabbed his coat. “Leave with your legacy and reputation intact, Nicole. The committee will be looking for blood over this and it’s yours that will be spilled.”

 

…

 

 _We've been lonely_ _  
_ _We've been lonely, too long_

 

“Aoife is dead, isn’t she?”

Charlotte let the pen immediately stop on her notepad. She paused and glanced up. She felt calm and certain that this was just a brief moment of lucidity that would pass over just as quickly as it came. Becky stood as still as statue staring out of the window, her wrinkled hand clutching the ledge.

“Is Aoife dead?” Becky insisted on an answer.

Charlotte decided she didn’t want to wait for it to pass. In a thousand worlds, across a thousand different lifetimes, her need to be seen would always be greater than the troublemaker’s heartbreak.

“She’s been gone a long time, you just didn’t remember it.”

Becky grew quiet, her head nodding to herself as she digested the information as best she could.

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

Charlotte felt her heart skip a beat.

She looked up at the old troublemaker, hoping for a smirk, hoping for a glimmering stare, hoping for some symptom of recognition. Becky didn’t even turn around from the window, she just stood there with her hands tight around the ledge and her back stooped over slightly. It became all the more infuriating the longer that Charlotte was forced to endure the cold shoulder.

“Yep,” Charlotte answered tersely.

“How are you here?”

“It was my hospital long before it was yours.”

“So this is where guilty psychopaths retire? The hospital?” Becky scoffed.

“If they’re smart, sure.” Charlotte inhaled a deep, quick breath. “I always liked blood. I always liked the way bodies looked when they were inside out. Plus I wanted to be close to you. Can we acknowledge that too?”

“Tell me what happened to her?”

“It will only upset you.”

Becky’s tone became quiet and severe, “Then at least I’ll have that much,” she said.

“I took a sabbatical, told the board I wanted to build wells in Africa but really I was just leading her on a wild goose chase.” Charlotte scratched her head and clasped her weathered hands. “I waited until she had the tools to fight me back. I was the one who put them in her hands, give me that much? Please?” The doctor needed it absolving from what little conscience she had.

“She was never going to win.”

“Would you have really wanted her to?”

“No,” Becky replied with a heavy heart. “In theory, maybe, but no.”

“She didn’t suffer.” Charlotte didn’t know what else to say.

“I was her mother, all she ever knew was suffering.”

“Are we talking about my burdens or yours?”

“How did she die?” Becky insisted on the unabridged version of events. “Where did you… where did you put her?”

“Gunshot wound to the left upper quadrant of the thorax. It was fairly quick, long enough for us to say what needed to be said but short enough that she didn’t suffer.” Charlotte recalled every moment of it clearly in her mind as though she were the one stuck in memories. “I put half of her ashes in the chicken coup because I knew you would like that. I put half of her ashes with Emily because I knew you would hate that. I’m not sentimental but I know you are, and I thought you would appreciate all of the trouble I went to.”

There was a long, hateful pause.

“It must eat you up alive to know I barely remember any of it.”

“Beyond words, baby.” The reply was quiet and sincere. “It hurts like you wouldn’t believe.” She watched Becky soften, slightly.

“I’ve waited thirty-five years to see you again.” Becky swallowed. “I planned out everything I was going to say, everything you were going to say, all the different ways we might kill each other, the places we might run off to, every little exciting little twist and turn.” Becky came undone with a deep, wobbly exhale of breath. “It was better when it ended with two psychopaths falling down in a chapel. We were never supposed to be two old women in a hospital room, that wasn’t our story.”

“Well if it's any consolation it won't be for much longer.” Charlotte scoffed.

“When are they sending me back to prison?”

“Three days.” Charlotte leaned back in her seat. “I’m filing paperwork as we speak to try and transfer you to Reagan. I’ve waited thirty-five years and I’m not giving you back without a fight—”

Becky snapped around with a broken look in her eyes.

“There’s nothing left worth fighting for, Charlotte. Our years are behind us.” She began to quietly laugh in profound, guttural disbelief. “What is there _left of me_ to fight for? I won’t know who you are tomorrow! I won’t know who I am tomorrow! We torched everything to the ground. We burned everything until there was nothing left but ourselves and each other. Well, look at us now.” Becky blinked and held a repulsed, heaving look. “We used to be kings, you and me, now you’re playing make believe in your little white doctor’s coat and I’m left suffering the entire history of you—”

Charlotte kissed her so hard it nearly took the old troublemaker off her unsteady feet.

“I love you.” Charlotte hissed between her clenched teeth and held back the urge to weep. “I love you and how _dare_ you think that me being the death of you one day isn’t worth fighting for.”

“I might not know you tomorrow,” Becky reasoned quietly, her wrinkled fingers tight around the doctor’s lapels.

“We’ve spent our lives hurting each other in horrific, indescribable ways.” Charlotte pushed forward and rested her forehead against the troublemaker’s. “You might not remember me, but nobody knows me the way you do. That doesn’t change.”

“The letters were a bit much but you do make a fair point.”

“One last adventure?” Charlotte pulled her pistol out of the back of her waistband. “If there’s nothing left then we have nothing to lose?”

Becky’s eyes glimmered mischievously, her laughter a sound nearly worth the thirty-five year wait. The corner of Charlotte’s mouth twitched until she was grinning in awe of it. Goodness, thirty-five years was a long time. Charlotte had no arguments there. But it took her becoming an old woman to realise what it meant to love a wild woman, and whatever time she had left it was going to be used doing precisely that.

“I don’t think we’re shooting our way out of this one.” Becky sighed with a smile.

“You sure?” Charlotte clicked the safety off. “Do you want to die in prison or do you want to roll the dice and see how far we make it to Belize? Because I am _sure_ they have chapels there if you want to re-write an ending or two.” The doctor steadied herself with a deep inhale. “I’m tired of being Nicole Peters, Becky. I’m tired of the world. I’m tired of everything but you. Maybe we don’t make it ten feet down the hallway but it’s the thought that counts, right?” She counted how many she had in the chamber.

Becky paused the longest time, her smirk not dampening for a single second of it.

“Race you.”


End file.
